New firm gets $60M contract for lab collection services

REGINA Laboratory services in Regina and Saskatoon will have a new name and look in the spring and, with the changes, the promise of improved patient services.

LifeLabs will be taking over community lab collection services from Dynacare in Regina and Saskatoon on April 1. The seven-year contract is valued at more than $60 million.

Dynacare has had a community lab presence in the cities since 2006.

“They’ve had two contracts with the system with some extensions, which were within the contract to extend,” said Corey Miller, vicepresident of provincial programs for the Saskatchewan Health Authority. “We were bound by free trade rules to do a public tendering of that service.”

The request for proposals process began in December 2016.

Dynacare and LifeLabs were the only vendors to bid on the work.

The contract with LifeLabs was authorized by the new Saskatchewan Health Authority Board at its public meeting Thursday. The contract is for a period of seven years, with an extension option for an additional three years, and is valued at more than $60 million.

“This was cost-neutral from what our existing costs are,” Miller said. “That being said, there’s a component of additional services that we’re adding into this.”

The current provincial contract with Dynacare this year is projected to be over $8 million.

LifeLab will pilot increased hours of service at two community labs, and enhanced courier hours in Regina. An additional collection day per week for Pioneer Village will be offered, and the monitoring of wait times will be strengthened.

Additionally, the company will hold regular meetings with longterm care facilities to review services, and there will be dedicated monitoring of courier services and route mapping, to optimize the time it takes to transport samples.

Patients will be able to make online appointment bookings.

“We do hope to work with this vendor to improve the patient experience,” Miller said. “Not that Dynacare wasn’t providing good care. They provided excellent care.”

Currently Regina and Saskatoon each have five Dynacare clinics. Between the two cities, 100 employees will be affected by the change of vendor.

“We do know that LifeLabs needs to hire staff in Saskatchewan to provide the services for the collections labs, and for the courier and all of the services that they will be providing,” Miller said. “We’re not saying it was a requirement of the contract that they hire the staff, but we do know that it’s their intention.”

LifeLab will hold recruitment days in Regina and Saskatoon in the near future. All of the lab sites will be refurbished, and one site in each city will move to better meet patients’ needs.

“If we have a collection site that’s in an area where there isn’t great parking and we’ve had lots of frustrating calls, we may reassess that and find a location with better access,” Miller said.

We do know that LifeLabs needs to hire staff in Saskatchewan to provide the services for the collections labs.