CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
Jan Bowers
April 2017—Twenty years ago, CAP TODAY released its first product guide for laboratory-provider links software. The demand for connectivity was growing as laboratories built their outreach business, and the future looked bright for LPL software companies.
Two decades later, the functionality is as essential as ever, but health care consolidation is influencing the who and the how in the software connectivity marketplace, in the view of one pathology informatics veteran. As independent practices, and even large, multi-physician clinics, are being purchased by hospitals and health systems, says Bruce A. Friedman, MD, emeritus professor of informatics in the Department of Pathology, University of Michigan, these practices increasingly are being required to use specific EHR software in lieu of freestanding LPL products. But on the bright side, he continues, “it’s still a robust market … And some of these smaller companies don’t need a lot of contracts to continue in the market.”