Sparrow Health System Renews Contract with Mayo Medical Laboratories for Its Advanced Testing Needs

By Gina Chiri-Osmond • January 5, 2018

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Sparrow Health System has chosen Mayo Medical Laboratories as its primary reference laboratory for advanced laboratory testing, enhancing the availability of complex tests and making test results available more quickly to providers and patients through ISparrow, Sparrow’s electronic medical record.

“We have a unique relationship with Mayo Clinic,” says Dennis Swan, president and CEO of Sparrow. “We have been long-time clients of Mayo Medical Laboratories, and we are also Michigan’s first member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.”

The agreement gives Sparrow providers and staff access to Mayo’s extensive menu of more than 3,000 lab tests in every subspecialty of medicine. Sparrow staff also will have direct access to Mayo physicians and scientists to review patient test orders and interpret results, as well as have access to Mayo’s continuing education programs.

The Mayo Clinic Care Network is a system of health care organizations committed to serving their patients and improving the delivery of care through collaboration. The network promotes a close clinical relationship that focuses on sharing knowledge and expertise so that more patients can stay close to home for their care. Mayo Medical Laboratories (MML) is the global reference laboratory of Mayo Clinic. Through its worldwide network of more than 4,000 clients, MML enables hospitals, medical centers, specialty clinics, and health care organizations around the world to send their clinical tests to the laboratories at Mayo Clinic, where some of the most complex testing is performed.

While Sparrow will continue to conduct most of its own inpatient and outpatient testing, the affiliation with Mayo Medical Laboratories will provide access to more advanced diagnostic and newly developed tests. Sparrow recently opened the Herbert-Herman Cancer Center, and much of the intricate cancer testing and evaluation will be sent to Mayo Clinic.

“We are working with leading health care systems to provide the right test at the right time for each patient,” says William Morice, II, M.D., Ph.D., president of Mayo Medical Laboratories and chair of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic. “Working with Sparrow’s laboratory staff and clinicians, we will collaborate on optimizing test orders, launching new tests at Sparrow, and applying new analytics technologies. Together, we will provide the highest quality laboratory tests at an affordable price for the patients who need these tests.”

“Mayo Medical Laboratories provides tests that might be needed only on rare occasions and tests that require special expertise to perform and interpret,” says Eric Crockett, vice chair, provider relations, at Mayo. “As a result of this relationship, patients and physicians will benefit from the knowledge of a worldwide network of experts when it’s needed.”

Specimens obtained at Sparrow will be transported via air to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with results often available as soon as the following day. Additionally, MML will work closely with Sparrow to enhance the test menu of locally performed tests through a suite of consultation and support services.

“Our highly skilled laboratory staff members perform more than eight million laboratory tests annually,” adds Jon Baker, laboratory director at Sparrow. “Mayo Medical Laboratories will help us expand and diversify in‑house lab testing at Sparrow, and we are very supportive of this collaboration.”

To learn more about Sparrow, visit www.sparrow.org.

Gina Chiri-Osmond

Gina Chiri-Osmond is a Marketing Channel Manager at Mayo Clinic Laboratories.