Are health systems running the right tests in the right places?

For many health systems, laboratory networks evolved gradually as hospitals merged, facilities expanded, and operational needs changed over time. As organizations grew, laboratories often retained their own workflows, instrumentation, testing practices, and operating models. 

As a result, many health systems now operate laboratory networks that lack enterprise-wide alignment.

At the same time, staffing shortages, reimbursement pressure, rising operational costs, aging infrastructure, and growing demands for efficiency are forcing leaders to take a closer look at how laboratory resources are deployed.

This “perfect storm” has health system leaders are asking a fundamental question:

 Are our laboratory resources aligned to the needs of the organization today?

Optimization is about alignment—not sacrificing care

When health systems hear the phrase “lab network optimization,” the conversation can quickly become associated with consolidation or cost cutting.

But leading organizations are approaching optimization differently.

Many health systems are identifying opportunities to centralize selected testing areas into centers of excellence while maintaining turnaround times and clinical quality through stronger logistics and specimen flow strategies.

The hidden cost of maintaining low-volume testing

Historically, many organizations simply continued adding testing capabilities as hospitals expanded or merged. But few systems have fully reevaluated whether maintaining every test internally is still the best use of labor, instrumentation, and capital.

As health systems evaluate their laboratory networks more strategically, many are revisiting fundamental questions.

• Which tests truly need to remain local? 
• Where does centralization create value? 
• Which services are more efficient to outsource? 
• Where can enterprise assets be leveraged more effectively? 
• How should specimen flow evolve across the network? 

Some health systems may choose to centralize more testing internally through core labs and centers of excellence. Others may leverage external laboratory infrastructure or operational partnerships to improve efficiency and scalability. In many cases, the right solution is a hybrid model tailored to the organization’s clinical, operational, and financial priorities.

What matters most is approaching these decisions intentionally rather than continuing to rely on established practices.

Why optimization has become a strategic imperative

Laboratory optimization is often overlooked because laboratory spend represents a relatively small portion of total health system spend. But the operational impact of the laboratory reaches far beyond the lab itself.

Even modest improvements in alignment and efficiency can create meaningful enterprise-wide value—supporting patient flow, staffing models, outreach performance, capital planning, turnaround times, and the clinician experience across the organization.

More importantly, optimization creates flexibility—helping organizations respond to workforce constraints, reimbursement pressure, operational complexity, and changing testing demands.

The organizations making the most progress are not necessarily making the most dramatic changes. They’re taking a more intentional, data-driven look at how their testing enterprise operates—and asking whether their laboratory network is still aligned to the organization’s operational and clinical needs today.