The population of the United States reached 300 million in late 2006. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 78.2 million baby boomers living in the United States as of July 2005, accounting for 26.8% of the population. In 2006 the first baby boomers turned 60. What does this mean for the laboratory industry? By examining state census records and lab industry demographics, it’s possible to get a sense of where market growth may be focused in the near future. LIR looked at four states—Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and Washington—to get a sense of what’s going on in those states’ lab industry. They aren’t the largest state—that would be California, and none of them have had the greatest change in population—that would be Arizona. But they do give us a representative sense of the industry in different regions of the country.

There are 184 CLIA-licensed commercial laboratories in the state of Illinois. The top 12 laboratories perform a total of 33.7 million tests annually. Quest Diagnostics, in their Wood Dale facility (about 20 miles outside of Chicago), was the largest-volume lab in the state, performing 12 million tests annually. The second-largest lab in Illinois by test volume is VHS Genesis Laboratory in Berwyn, performing 5.5 million tests per year. Vanguard Health Systems (Nashville, TN), a privately held hospital management company, purchased Genesis Clinical Laboratory in 1999.

Doctor’s Data Inc. (DDI) performs 3.8 million tests annually. Located in Urbana, the laboratory specializes in essential and toxic elemental testing of multiple human tissues. Carle Clinic Laboratory (Urbana) performs 3.6 million tests a year, serving the Carle Clinic Foundation, one of the largest private physician groups in the country. NICL Laboratories, located in Northbrook, performs 3.1 million tests annually. They also run 10 patient service centers and offer STAT testing in several locations. Metropolitan Medical Laboratory has eight labs in the Illinois and Iowa Quad Cities, four of them in regional hospitals. They perform 3 million tests annually, with hospital, physician, clinic, and nursing home clients.

Illinois has 343 CLIA-licensed hospital laboratories. The top 12 laboratories perform a total of 54.1 million tests annually. Illinois’s largest-volume hospital lab is the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in Chicago. It performs 6.7 milliontests annually. Formerly named the Cook County

Hospital, Stroger Hospital is part of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services, the largest component of public healthcare in Chicago and suburban Cook County. The University of Chicago Hospital (Chicago) is part of the University of Chicago Hospitals and Health System. The main lab performs 6.3 million tests annually.

OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, located in downtown Peoria, performs 5 million tests annually. A 551-bed hospital, it also operates the Children’s Hospital of Illinois. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago) is part of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. Its main lab performs 4.7 million tests annually. It is the primary teaching hospital for Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, performs 4.7 million tests annually. It is a private, academic healthcare institution. Located north of Chicago, Evanston Hospital (Evanston) is the hub of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare affiliated with Northwestern University and the Feinberg School of Medicine. It performs 4.6 million lab tests annually.

There are 109 CLIA-licensed commercial laboratory facilities in Massachusetts. The top 12 laboratories in the state perform a combined annual test volume of over 41 million tests. Quest Diagnostics is a dominant player in the state, performing 25.1 million tests annually, compared to the closest competitor, Life Laboratories (Springfield) with 3.3 million. Their volumes are exceeded by one laboratory in the state, a hospital laboratory, Baystate Medical Center (Springfield), which performs 38.7 million tests annually. Otherwise no lab facility even comes close in terms of test volumes.

Life Laboratories (Springfield) conducts 3.3 million tests annually. It is a full-service medical lab offering services to three hospitals, group practices, mental health facilities, as well as long-term care facilities and private physicians. LabCorp ranks third in Massachusetts with 2.2 million tests performed annually at their Worcester facility. Calloway Laboratories (Woburn) conducts 2.1 million tests per year. Calloway’s focus is clinical toxicology.

U.S. Laboratory and Radiology is a full-service provider of mobile laboratory and radiology services located in Brockton, about 15 miles south of Boston. The laboratory component performs 1.9 million tests annually throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and southern New Hampshire. Caritas Excell Clinical Laboratories performs 1.4 million tests annually. Located in Boston, it is a for-profit lab company owned by St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center (Boston), part of the six-hospital Caritas Christi Health Care System. St. Elizabeth’s is also the teaching hospital for the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Massachusetts has 221 CLIA-licensed hospital laboratory facilities operating in the state. The top 12 hospital labs perform a whopping 92.1 million lab tests annually, more than double that of the top 12 independent laboratory facilities. Baystate Medical Center (BMC; Springfield) performs 38.7 million tests annually. The largest hospital in the Baystate Health System, the BMC includes Baystate Children’s Hospital as well as 11 other specialty centers and programs. It also serves as the western campus of Tufts University School of Medicine. Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH, Boston) Department of Pathology performs 10.9 million tests annually. MGH is the oldest and largest (902 beds) hospital in Massachusetts.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston) performs 8.6 million tests annually. A teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School (as is MGH), they are both founding members of Partners HealthCare System, which also includes Salem Hospital (Salem), whose laboratory performs 4 million tests annually. Lahey Clinic Medical Center (Burlington) performs 5.1 million tests annually. Lahey is a 278 bed hospital with an ambulatory care center handling approximately 3,000 patients daily. It is also a teaching hospital for Tufts University School of Medicine. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC; Boston) performs 4.1 million lab tests per year. BIDMC is the teaching hospital for the Harvard Medical School.

There are 203 CLIA-licensed commercial laboratory facilities in New York state. The top 12 of those perform almost 75 million tests per year. The top producer is LabCorp (Uniondale), performing slightly less than 27 million tests annually. The second largest producer of tests in the state of New York is OMH Clinical Laboratories-Nathan in Orangeburg, with 11.3 million tests annually. The OMH Clinical Laboratory is affiliated with the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research and is a full-service laboratory that performs much of the routine laboratory work for the New York Office of Mental Health (OMH).

Quest Diagnostics runs two major labs in New York, one in Syosset, on Long Island, which performs 7.7 million tests annually, and one in West Amherst, near Syracuse, which performs 6.7 million tests annually. This market has been hotly contested in 2006 and 2007, ignited when Quest Diagnostics lost their contracts for UnitedHealth to LabCorp in January 2007. The frontlines for this battle were in New York state and the New York City metropolitan area.

Centralized Lab Services (Long Island City) performs 6.4 million tests a year. It is a division of HIP Health Plan of New York (New York City), which provides services to approximately 1.4 million individuals in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Bendiner & Schlesinger (Brooklyn) performs 3.8 million tests annually. It is privately held. Its main office is in Brooklyn, and it has an additional three facilities in Manhattan and a fourth in Yonkers.

There are 308 CLIA-licensed hospital laboratories in New York state. The top 12 performers account for an annual total of 77.8 million tests. New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center (New York City, in uptown Manhattan) performs 12.2 million tests annually. John T. Mather Memorial Hospital (Port Jefferson) performs 8.6 million annually. The hospital is part of the Long Island Health Network (LIHN), a joint venture among 10 hospitals in the Long Island area.

Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City) performs 7.7 million tests annually. They include the Mount Sinai Hospital, the Mount Sinai Medical Center, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Bellevue Hospital Center labs (New York City) perform 6.5 million tests annually. Affiliated with the New York University School of Medicine, it is the oldest public hospital in the United States.

The state of Washington has a total of 118 CLIA-licensed commercial laboratory facilities. The top 12 commercial laboratories alone perform more than 35 million tests annually.
LabCorp (Seattle) performs 8.8 million tests per year. This is a somewhat understated number than is actually the case, because LabCorp has large interests in DynaCare laboratories. DynaCare labs also operate as commercial facilities throughout Washington, and as hospital contracted laboratories, most notably Dynacare Northwest, Inc., which performs 11.5 million tests annually, primarily for the Swedish Medical Hospital System.

Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (Spokane) ranks second for commercial lab facilities with 8 million tests performed yearly. It is a for-profit subsidiary of Sacred Heart Medical Center, and provides laboratory testing and management services to hospital laboratory networks in Seattle, Spokane, and throughout parts of Idaho. Quest Diagnostics (Seattle) performs 4.5 million tests annually. U.S. Biotek Laboratories (Seattle) performs 2.6 million tests annually. Dynacare rounds out the top six with Dynacare at Swedish First Hill (Seattle) performing 2.6 million tests annually and Dynacare/Skagit Laboratories-Main campus (Vernon) performing 1.8 million annually.

There are 116 CLIA-licensed hospital laboratories operating in Washington. The top 12 hospital laboratories alone perform a total of over 49 million laboratory tests per year. Dynacare Northwest, a subsidiary of LabCorp, is contracted until 2015 to provide laboratory services for the entire Swedish Medical Hospital System, which includes three hospitals in the Seattle area. They perform 11.5 million tests annually. Sacred Heart Medical Center (Spokane) performs 5.2 million tests annually.

The University of Washington Medical Center (Seattle) performs 4.8 million tests. It is a teaching hospital for the University of Washington. Virginia Mason Medical Center is a private, for-profit medical center. Its laboratory performs 4.7 million tests annually. Multicare Medical Center Laboratories NW (MMCLNW; Tacoma) is a referral center for the Multicare Health System. With a main lab at the Tacoma General Hospital, MMCLNW also has nine satellite laboratories. It performs 4.6 million tests annually. Harborview Medical Center (Seattle) performs 4 million tests annually. The Medical Center is owned by King County and is managed by the University of Washington.