It’s this 100%. This is being driven by several factors but the main one is cost. Finance departments are targeting high paying jobs and looking at what they can do without.

Think about it, you are a hospital having a horrible time with staff turnover in your breast pathology group. You have 5 headcount open for a team of 10 (15 total headcount). You have had these job openings listed since the pandemic. To meet your patients needs you have been sending out to another lab.

Now a sales rep for a medical automation company comes in and shows you examples of how you can increase your overall throughput with your current staff by switching certain tests and protocols to a digital scanner, as well improve TAT for your HEME testing to 24-48hrs.

Are you going to continue holding capital in reserve to add incremental headcount? Or are you going to outlay capital for a more efficient solution? Different HCO’s make different decisions, but the largest clinics are all diving into automation headfirst not toefirst.