Integration and standardization within the Mayo Foundation Laboratories: the centralized laboratory purchasing group.

Integration and standardization of laboratories throughout a medical system can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of laboratory operations. This task is challenging in most health-care systems, as no central governance exists to compel laboratories to standardize and integrate. We describe the initial collaborative efforts to integrate and standardize the laboratories of the Mayo Foundation, which includes more than 60 laboratories of different sizes in diverse locations. The goals and objectives of the group formed to develop this initiative--the Centralized Laboratory Purchasing Group--its origin, and lessons learned are described. Similar initiatives by other academic medical centers and community health-care systems to integrate and standardize their laboratories are discussed. Successful standardization and integration increases the value of the laboratory to the larger health-care system by demonstrating accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness, and can result in considerable cost savings to the entire health-care system.