The Auckland DHB say that Labtests has improved significantly over the past few months. The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia had come in to assess areas of concern, the health board itself had instigated intensive monitoring and there had been a “radical reduction” in complaints about the service, both from the public and the [...]

In the game of Laboratory Test Chicken that has been going on recently, the Auckland DHBs have just folded their hand (to mix a metaphor) and are now the clear losers. All the “savings” promised by this move are now totally lost. Labtests have been pushed into providing a much more comprehensive service than they [...]

One month into the contract that is the score so far. The doctors, ably, if pointlessly, abetted by DML, have scored a scalp in the form of the CEO of Labtests, Ulf Lindskog. In addition, they seems to have managed to bully the DHBs into appointing their own team to oversee quality assurance. The first [...]

ADHB has succumbed to all the bad publicity surrounding Labtests and, in an effort to look tough, has delivered an “ultimatum” – at least according to the Sunday Star Times. Excuse me while attempt to feign interest… This is not news, nor is it an ultimatum. This is simply the contract between Labtests and the [...]

Well the Saturday Herald is splattered with so many hysterical articles about the evils of Labtests that it almost seems they have been bought out by DML. The articles range from the idiotic to the actually concerning (if true). There is the sad tale of the GP who wants to leave Auckland because Labtests is [...]

I have been following the DML/Labtests saga with interest. The media now seem to be fixated on the blood collection waiting times as if this is something other than a minor inconvenience. The DHBs have performance targets in place for waiting times and I’m certain that Labtests, once they have ironed out their initial, inevitable [...]

In what has to be the most bizarre twist in the DML/Labtests saga, Diagnostic Medlabs has hired a film crew to interview people emerging from Labtests’ rooms. I have to assume that the CEO of DML, Arthur Morris, has finally gone off the deep end. Admittedly, he has had a lot of stress in his [...]

Yeah, right. Just in case you were naive enough to think that Diagnostic Medical Laboratories (DML) went to all the trouble of disputing Labtests contract bid because they were worried about patient care, comes this statement in the Herald today. “The suggestion was made that they [our staff] might be able to have laboratory tours [...]

With Labtest’s change over now going ahead, Kristine Bailey, a Canadian laboratory management and start-up expert, reiterates her misgivings about the changeover that she provided to the court of appeal. I think she is right to call it a unique experiment – an experiment on the people of Auckland. A changeover of this size has never [...]