Scott Grubenhoff
Scott Grubenhoff brings more than 20 years of healthcare category management experience to his role as senior director of sourcing operations at Vizient, where he oversees the lab category management team...
Spend Management Outlook
Laboratory outlook: The lab is not a line item. Stop managing it like one.
Treat lab as a supply chain function and lose ground. Treat it as an engine of access, growth, and capability—and lead.
Key points
Laboratory services are being pulled in two directions at once. Health systems are expanding testing closer to patients through ambulatory, emergency, and other decentralized care settings while simultaneously investing in advanced diagnostics that support specialty care, precision medicine, digital pathology, and AI-enabled technologies.
These are not competing priorities—they’re part of the same strategic shift. The challenge is expanding access to high-volume testing while building the diagnostic capabilities necessary to advance increasingly complex models of care.
That changes the conversation. Laboratory decisions are becoming less about managing a discrete product category and more about determining how diagnostic services expand access, enable growth, strengthen clinical capability, and improve long-term organizational performance.
Laboratory product inflation projections, Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2027
| Category | Estimated inflation |
|---|---|
| Laboratory | 1.87% |
| Consumables | 1.96% |
| Equipment | 1.49% |
Although projected inflation remains lower than many other spend categories, laboratory strategy continues to be influenced by testing utilization, service line growth, and evolving diagnostic models. Growth in point-of-care testing and rapid diagnostics is expanding access to testing across care settings, while continued investment in molecular diagnostics and specialized testing supports more complex clinical care.
For more detailed projections, access the data tables and methodology.
Your 60-second read
- Laboratory product pricing will increase 1.87% from January 2027 through December 2027, with consumables projected at 1.96% and equipment projected at 1.49%.
- As testing demand shifts across care settings, service lines, and diagnostic modalities, laboratory strategy is becoming more closely tied to enterprise performance.
- Laboratory strategy is increasingly influenced by testing utilization, service line growth, and evolving diagnostic models.
- Growth in point-of-care testing and rapid diagnostics is expanding access to testing across care settings, while continued investment in molecular diagnostics and specialized testing supports increasingly complex clinical care.
- This reinforces the need to manage laboratory spend through both price and volume.
Several market dynamics are expected to influence laboratory strategy in 2027:
| Market trend | What it means for laboratory |
|---|---|
| Ambulatory expansion | Increased demand for point-of-care testing and decentralized diagnostic services |
| Specialty care growth | Greater need for molecular diagnostics and advanced testing that support oncology, hematology, and metabolic/endocrine programs |
| Access and turnaround time | Expansion of rapid diagnostics and testing closer to the patient |
| Revenue diversification | Evaluation of in-house testing, reference laboratory relationships, and regional laboratory partnerships |
| Digital transformation | Increased interest in digital pathology, workflow modernization, and AI-enabled diagnostic capabilities |
Health systems that view laboratory services as an enterprise capability rather than a discrete operational function create a stronger foundation to expand access, support specialty growth, adopt emerging diagnostic technologies, and meet future demand.
Three shifts are rewriting the laboratory playbook
The following trends illustrate how we see laboratory utilization, diagnostic complexity, and organizational priorities evolving across healthcare.
1. Laboratory spend is moving toward accessible testing.
Point-of-care testing and rapid test kits experienced the largest increase in share of spend, followed by phlebotomy and chemistry/immunochemistry. This reflects growing demand for testing closer to the patient—particularly in emergency departments, urgent care, ambulatory settings, and other non-acute locations.
2. Advanced diagnostics retain their strategic importance despite shifts in relative share.
Molecular technology declined as a percentage of spend, but it remains the largest laboratory category and continues to support oncology, infectious disease, and precision medicine strategies. The decline reflects normalization after elevated COVID-era testing and faster growth in other categories, not reduced clinical importance.
3. Digital pathology is evolving into a strategic diagnostic capability.
Digital pathology is increasingly being evaluated as part of broader diagnostic, data, and AI strategies. Beyond supporting remote consultation and subspecialty collaboration, digital pathology can provide a foundation for workflow automation, AI-enabled image analysis, and future diagnostic support tools.
Large integrated delivery networks and academic medical centers have generally been better positioned to scale digital pathology because of their pathology volumes, subspecialty needs, IT infrastructure, and ability to support enterprise workflow transformation. Many organizations, however, remain in the assessment, pilot, or phased implementation stage as they evaluate implementation requirements and long-term value.
Adoption requires meaningful investment in technology, data management, cybersecurity, systems integration, and workflow redesign. While near-term impacts are often tied to capital planning and operational transformation, organizations may realize longer-term benefits through improved productivity, diagnostic consistency, access to expertise, and readiness for emerging AI capabilities. For that reason, digital pathology should be evaluated not only as a laboratory modernization initiative but also as a strategic enterprise capability.
Four moves to make now
| Priority | Executive action |
|---|---|
| Treat laboratory strategy as an enterprise capability, not a supply chain line item | Look for opportunities to strengthen decentralized laboratory governance through quality oversight, training, compliance, and utilization management that extend across nontraditional testing sites. |
| Coordinate laboratory decisions across the enterprise | As laboratory services become more closely tied to ambulatory growth, specialty care expansion, and digital transformation, decision-making should be coordinated across laboratory leadership, service line leaders, operations, finance, supply chain, and information technology. |
| Expand diagnostic access where it creates measurable value | Point-of-care testing, rapid diagnostics, and specimen collection strategies should be guided by ambulatory growth plans, patient access needs, and turnaround time expectations rather than deployed as stand-alone laboratory initiatives. |
| Protect molecular and specialty diagnostic capacity | Molecular and specialty diagnostics remain foundational to oncology, infectious disease, and precision medicine programs. As laboratory demand increasingly follows high-growth service lines—including hematology, oncology, metabolic, and endocrine disease—leaders should avoid treating lower relative spend share as a signal of reduced clinical importance. |
The health systems that win won't choose between access and capability—they’ll multiply both.
As testing demand accelerates across ambulatory, specialty, and non-acute settings, the organizations that align laboratory investment with service line growth, access, and digital infrastructure will outperform those focused on unit price alone. The diagnostic rebalancing underway across healthcare reflects a broader reality: competitive advantage increasingly depends on expanding access to testing while simultaneously strengthening diagnostic capability. Leaders that treat those priorities as mutually reinforcing, rather than competing, are far more likely to drive growth, support increasingly complex care, and sustain organizational performance.
Justin Cassidy contributed to this article.
We’re here to help
From Vizient services to related insights, explore our additional resources
- Spend Management Outlook insights: Discover what’s next across pharmacy, MedSurg, capital, indirect spend, and PPI.
- Spend Management Outlook executive brief: Beyond inflation: Understanding the forces reshaping healthcare spend.
The forces reshaping laboratory are influencing other spend categories as well.
Explore our outlooks on pharmacy, indirect spend, medical-surgical (MedSurg), physician preference items (PPI), capital, and policy.
For supply chain decision-makers
Talking points to build the business case for strategic laboratory investment
- Bring testing closer to home: Demonstrate how expanding in-house testing can improve patient access and turnaround times while creating new revenue opportunities that offset upfront capital investment.
- Build continuity across the care continuum: Show how partnering with suppliers that offer integrated solutions across the care continuum can improve consistency, streamline operations, and strengthen care coordination.
- Drive savings through standardization: Explain how standardizing laboratory supplies and committing to preferred vendors can reduce supply costs, improve operational efficiency, and support long-term financial sustainability.
Authors
Carolyn Larsen
Carolyn Larsen brings 40 years of experience in the healthcare industry. In her role as a senior category manager, she manages highly complex laboratory categories, plans bid strategies, and forecasts the budget for the categories she is responsible for...
Ashley Martinez
Ashley Martinez brings more than 20 years of clinical laboratory and healthcare leadership experience to her role as category manager at Vizient, where she supports the laboratory category management team...