June 16, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
MADISON, N.J. – Safeway, the grocery store company that once looked to a partnership with beleaguered Theranos, has now struck a deal with Quest Diagnostics to set up diagnostic testing locations in 12 of its stores across the United States.
Quest currently operates two patient centers in Arizona through Quest’s Sonora Quest Laboratories joint venture with Banner Health. Arizona is the same state Theranos had testing centers in 40 Walgreens locations. Last week Walgreens severed tied with Theranos after issues with its laboratory practices and the blood-testing company’s decision to invalidate two years’ worth of data processed at that California-lab.
New Jersey-based Quest will open diagnostic testing centers in California, Colorado, Texas, Virginia and Maryland. The centers, dubbed Patient Service Centers, will be adjacent to the pharmacy locations in each of these stores. The centers will be between 400 and 500 square-feet and include interior designs built to facilitate patient interaction in a secure and private environment. Each center will have a waiting room and a dedicated restroom with a sample pass-through.
“We are proud to expand our relationship with Safeway,” Steve Rusckowski, Quest Diagnostics President and CEO, said in a statement. “We’re building on what we learned in Arizona, which is that by providing laboratory testing services where patients also shop, we will make it easier for them to get the quality diagnostic insights they need in convenient locations. Our partnership with Safeway, combined with the technology investments we are making in our PSCs throughout the company and the commitment of our 44,000 dedicated employees to Everyday Excellence, are helping to create a first-class patient experience.”
Quest Diagnostics is one of the largest diagnostics companies in the United States, serving approximately half of health care providers, including doctors and hospitals, in the country. Nearly three million patients track and access their lab results and health data through Quest’s myQuest by Care360 patient portal and mobile app.
Safeway said it expanded the deal with Quest in an effort to make the grocery store chain a destination for health and wellness concerns.
One experience Quest and Safeway will provide customers using the patient service centers is a remote contact device that will allow them to shop while waiting for their appointment, likely similar to pagers used in restaurants notifying customers their table is ready.In November, a deal between Safeway and Theranos fell apart after the Palo Alto, Calif. company failed to meet necessary deadlines for testing roll-outs. Increased scrutiny of the accuracy of Theranos’ blood-testing technology also aided in Safeway’s walking away from the deal. Safeway had spent $350 million revamping its stores to provide service centers for Theranos’ products.
The Theranos testing sites in the 40 Walgreens locations have been the Palo Alto, Calif-based company’s biggest source of revenue. At one point Theranos was valued at about $9 billion, however since the company has been plagued by questions about its product, some estimates of the privately-held company have placed its value below $1 billion. Theranos operates a number of independent retail stores and said it has plans to open additional sites, possibly expanding to Pennsylvania.
