AHS cancels Sonic lab testing contract

Dynalife says it will help ensure patients awaiting testing results won’t be affected by the cancellation of a proposed contract with a new company that was to take over the work.

“We will work with AHS and the ministry to ensure services are not disrupted,” Dynalife CEO Jason Pincock said Friday in an email.

Dynalife’s contract with the health authority, estimated at $ 200 million a year, expires in March 2016.

Sonic Health Ltd., based in Australia, was to take over lab services under a proposed $ 3- billion, 15year contract, which included the construction of a super lab.

AHS cancelled that contract this week and Health Minister Sarah Hoffman launched a review to see if the province has the right balance of private versus publicly delivered lab services.

In Edmonton and northern Alberta, 61 per cent of lab services are done by Dynalife, a private company. Under Sonic, that would increase to 74 per cent.

Hoffman asked for the review by year’s end.

Pincock said Dynalife already has a super lab in downtown Edmonton, but its lease expires in 2017.

Health authority CEO Vickie Kaminski said a new lab is needed because of overcrowding.

Pincock said AHS sends a small number of specialty tests to labs in Canada and the United States.

“This is done primarily because they are low volume and not because we could not develop the capability here in Alberta,” Pincock said.

Dr. Dilini Vethanayagam, a respirologist and asthma specialist at the University Hospital, said all lab services must be reviewed.

Since 2004, she has tried to have AHS create a local lab where cytotechnologists — technologists with specialized cell recognition training — can read tests immediately after patients with asthma or other lung disorders cough up sputum, or cells from the lower airways.

But in Edmonton, one lab does the sputum inductions, another with separate funding hires cytotechnologists to read the slides. That leads to delays, especially when repeated tests are necessary, so Vethanayagam sends patients to Calgary, which funds a special lab.

“Asthma is so common and it shouldn’t be so discordant between north and south,” Vethanayagam said.

“Lab services needs to be looked at more broadly, not just Dynalife versus Sonic. What’s the most effective way?”

Dr. Colin Goldschmidt, Sonic’s CEO, has called the cancellation of the proposed contract “disappointing.”