Market Challenges: High cost of diagnostic tests

The high cost of diagnostic tests can hamper the central lab market growth. Diagnostic tests performed at centralized labs can be quite expensive for patients as compared to point-of-care tests. This deters many patients from opting for centralized lab tests and instead these either avoid important tests or rely on cheaper alternatives. As per a survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2020, around 26% of American adults reported not visiting a doctor in the 2019 due to financial reasons. The survey further found that 11% skipped recommended medical tests or treatments due to their high cost. This clearly shows that cost remains a significant barrier limiting the uptake of diagnostic services especially those offered at centralized laboratories. Further, the rising healthcare costs have also made insurance coverage inadequate for many patients in fully covering expensive diagnostic tests performed at centralized labs. As per a report published by the Commonwealth Fund in 2021, around 29 million American adults reported facing challenges in paying medical bills or were paying off medical debt in 2020. Such financial burden and medical impoverishment discourages individuals from accessing important diagnostic services.

Market Opportunities: Adoption of LIS and automated diagnostic solutions

The adoption of laboratory information systems (LIS) and automated diagnostic solutions can offer growth opportunity for central lab market. LIS solutions allow for streamlined digital management of test requisitions, specimen tracking, result releases and billing. This brings unprecedented efficiency gains through automated workflows. It reduces turnaround time for test results and clerical errors. LIS integrated with automated diagnostic machines also allows for result interpretations by expert systems. This consistency in reporting improves quality of diagnostics. Several countries have launched major public healthcare initiatives that are focusing on incorporating modern technologies to strengthen their health systems. For example, under the National Digital Health Mission of India launched in 2020, digital registries of health records and interoperable statewide health record exchange infrastructure are being set up in India. This creates a huge potential for LIS vendors to provide customized, compliant solutions and for automated diagnostic companies to partner with labs. As more people gain access to healthcare in such developing healthcare systems, there will be huge demand for quality, timely diagnostics. With remote and point-of-care testing gaining popularity due to recent global events, there has been increasing adoption of portable diagnostic devices that can leverage cloud-based LIS systems. This facilitates real-time data collection and monitorability even in resource constrained settings.