ARUP Laboratories

ARUP Laboratories

Type	Medical school, hospitals, medical clinic, laboratories
Industry	Patient education, medical research, laboratories
Genre	Corporate histories
Founded	Salt Lake City, UT, U.S. (1984)
Founder(s)	University of Utah Department of Pathology members
Headquarters	Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.
Services	National reference and hospital laboratory
Employees	almost 3,000
Website	www.aruplab.com

ARUP Laboratories (Associated Regional and University Pathologists) is a leading national reference laboratory and a nonprofit enterprise of the University of Utah and its Department of Pathology. ARUP offers more than 3,000 tests and test combinations, ranging from routine screening tests to highly esoteric molecular and genetic assays. Located in the University of Utah Research Park in Salt Lake City, Utah, ARUP provides medical laboratory testing services for clients and their patients throughout the United States. ARUP's diagnostic-testing and disease-management menu encompasses all areas of clinical medicine, including allergy and immunology, clinical chemistry, cytogenetics and molecular genetics, endocrinology, obstetrics, neonatology and pediatrics, hematology, infectious diseases, neurology, oncology, preventive medicine, and anatomic pathology.

ARUP Laboratories' main facility is located in University of Utah's Research Park area in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Faculty from the University of Utah’s School of Medicine, including the Department of Pathology, serve as medical directors for each ARUP laboratory department, as consultants on diagnosis and patient-management questions, as researchers into new diagnostic laboratory technology and disease mechanisms, and as educators.

ARUP's clients include university teaching hospitals and children's hospitals, regional hospital networks, major commercial laboratories and clinics, group-purchasing organizations, and military and government facilities. ARUP does not solicit or compete for physician-office business but supports its clients’ existing test menus by providing highly complex, unique referral tests and accompanying consultative support.

ARUP Laboratories has nearly 3,000 employees and occupies multiple facilities in Salt Lake City. The laboratories are housed in a single 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m²) facility, where more than 30,000–35,000 specimens of blood, fluid, and tissue samples are processed each day. ARUP educational offerings include senior-year training and internships for undergraduate medical technologists, genetic-counselor training, and residency and fellowship programs in pathology and related disciplines. ARUP also provides phlebotomy services for the University [of Utah] Health Care system.

History

ARUP’s expanding professional staff includes medical directors who hold faculty positions at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

On June 15, 1984, with Dr. John Matsen, the then chairman of the University of Utah’s Department of Pathology, serving as its first president, ARUP Laboratories opened for business. Its main goal was to provide financial support to further the mission of the University of Utah Department of Pathology and funding and logistical support to the University of Utah Hospital and School of Medicine. Immediately upon moving into its home in the University of Utah’s Research Park area, ARUP began expanding both its personnel and its business and now houses one of the world’s largest laboratory transport and sorting systems, as well as a two-story clinical lab specimen freezer—the largest in the world.

In the mid-1990s, to fulfill clients’ needs, ARUP adopted a 24/7 schedule, staffing the laboratories on nights, weekends, and holidays. By this time, nearly two-thirds of the nation’s leading academic health centers, including Stanford and Harvard, were sending samples to ARUP. As the company grew and perfected its transportation system, it eventually became one of Delta Air Lines’ biggest shippers of airfreight into Salt Lake City, developing a shipping container that is nearly impossible to damage under normal circumstances.

In the beginning, the vast majority of ARUP’s revenue source was derived from the University of Utah Hospital, but as a result of the breadth and quality of its testing capabilities, ARUP greatly increased its client base and progressed from being a modest community laboratory to a nationally recognized reference laboratory, with over 3,000 clients located in all 50 states.

On July 1, 2009, Dr. Edward Ashwood assumed the position of ARUP Laboratories’ president and chief executive officer; ARUP founder Dr. Carl Kjeldsberg retired as CEO on June 30, 2009, but continues to serve as chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr. Sherrie L. Perkins serves as chief medical officer and director of laboratories.

Research and Development

The LightCycler, invented by Dr. Carl Wittwer, one of ARUP’s medical directors, is a high throughput gene-quantification and genotyping real-time PCR platform.

The ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology was created in 1996 as part of ARUP's mission to improve the health-care profession and advance the science of laboratory medicine through the development of new laboratory-medicine testing and technology, as well as through contributions to peer-reviewed medical literature. The ARUP Institute’s research projects seek to expand the quantity, quality, efficiency, and sophistication of laboratory tests. Additionally, ARUP scientific groups partner with academic centers and investigators to develop translational medicine projects, using ARUP’s resources to facilitate the development of basic research discoveries into applicable clinical medicine.

In 2003, ARUP partnered with the Utah Department of Health to create a pilot program for expanding newborn screening in Utah to include an additional 30 metabolic markers. A year later, this successful program became the standard for the mandatory screening of all newborns in the state of Utah. ^[1]

Children’s Health Improvement through Laboratory Diagnostics (CHILDx), an ARUP initiative, has partnered with multiple pediatric centers throughout the United States to establish the pediatric reference range interval project, an on-going research project that strives to improve pediatric-patient care. ^[2]

Dr. Carl Wittwer, one of ARUP’s medical directors, invented the LightCycler and real-time PCR techniques, used broadly in clinical diagnostics worldwide. ^[3] He is also the Scientific Co-Founder of Idaho Technology, Inc. a Salt Lake City-based small biotech company specializing in real-time PCR instrumentation, advanced Hi-Res Melting instruments for mutation detection, and other related technologies.

Other University of Utah faculty, together with research scientists within the ARUP Institute, have also introduced significant new intellectual property discoveries to widespread practice.

Laboratory Informatics and Utilization Management

ARUP's suite of Utilization Management Services is a comprehensive approach designed to unite the development of outreach and connectivity with the appropriate ordering and utilization of laboratory tests according to medically relevant criteria. ARUP’s unique position as both a hospital laboratory for the University Health Care system and a national reference laboratory has created the ideal environment to understand clients’ needs.

Suite of Integrated Services

ARUP’s Suite of Integrated Services is designed to assist clients with effective solutions for outreach, connectivity, lab-test ordering, and management; the suite includes ARUP ATOP, ARUP Consult, ARUP Insource Advantage, ARUP Direct, ARUP Connect, and ARUP Gateway.

Automation Initiative

ARUP strives toward total automation.

ARUP is an automated laboratory and continues its goal towards total laboratory automation (TLA).

ARUP is continuing to expand and optimize its automated processes in order to improve quality, turnaround time and productivity.

ARUP is the most automated laboratory in North America and continually looks for opportunities to use automation to replace manual processes.

ARUP’s current automation includes:

• A 1,100-foot (340 m) transport and sorting system with a capacity of 5,000 specimens per hour.
• A custom-built automated storage sorter that can sort 4000 finished specimens per hour into storage trays. This machine supplements two 1,000-per-hour storage sorters that were at production capacity.
• The trays of finished specimens are loaded into a two-story automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) housed in the world’s largest clinical laboratory freezer. This fully automated system has a capacity greater than 2.3 million specimens and individual specimens can be retrieved in 2.5 minutes.
• The world’s first automated thawing and mixing work-cells that thaw and then mix frozen specimens at a rate of more than 1,000 per hour each, reducing pre-analytical preparation and turnaround time while improving testing quality.
• A unique Sort-To-Light (STL) system for automated tracking of manual specimens not placed on the automated transport and sorting system. The bar codes of all so-called manual specimens (whether frozen, refrigerated, or room temperature) are scanned, which causes a plastic square to light up indicating the correct temporary holding bin for each specimen. The system also tracks when specimens are removed from the bins for transfer to laboratory sections for testing.

The combined impacts of these automated systems has improved ARUP’s lost specimen rate to Six Sigma levels, believed to be the best among US reference laboratories.

Blood Services

ARUP Blood Services provides blood products to patients at the University of Utah Hospital, Huntsman Cancer Hospital, Shriners Hospital for Children, and Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. In 2010, nearly 7,000 patients at these institutions were transfused with blood products collected by ARUP Blood Services. Currently, ARUP Blood Services has over 63 employees and collects approximately 1,900 whole blood units and 725 platelet units per month to meet the needs of these patients.

Key Facts

• ARUP Laboratories is a nonprofit enterprise of the University of Utah and its Department of Pathology.
• ARUP performs over 99 percent of all testing on-site, operating 24 hours per day, seven days a week.
• ARUP offers more than 3,000 tests and test combinations, ranging from routine screening tests to esoteric molecular and genetic assays.
• ARUP processes 30,000–35,000 specimens of blood, body fluid, and tissue biopsies per day.
• ARUP serves clients across the United States, including many of the nation's top university teaching hospitals and children's hospitals, as well as multihospital groups, major commercial laboratories, group purchasing organizations, military and other government facilities, and major clinics.
• ARUP is a worldwide leader in innovative laboratory research and development, led by the efforts of the ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology.
• ARUP was selected by Fortune magazine as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2003 and 2004. ^[4]
• ARUP has received numerous awards related to workplace quality, including a 2006 American Psychological Association’s National Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award. ^[5]
• ARUP places a strong emphasis on promoting an employee-focused working environment and includes many on-site service benefits, including a cafeteria serving healthy dining options, family health clinic, wellness center, and child-care facility. Many of these services are free for employees and their dependents.
• The Utah Breastfeeding Coalition recognized ARUP as part of its statewide initiative to increase the number of businesses that provide lactation support to nursing mothers.
• ARUP received this award from the Utah Council for Worksite Health Promotion in recognition of its commitment to promoting a healthy lifestyle at the workplace.

Top Competitors

Quest Diagnostics

Laboratory Corp. of America

Mayo Medical Laboratories

Genova Diagnostics

External links

• University of Utah Health Sciences - Associated Regional and University Pathologists - ABOUT
• ARUP Laboratories’ website
• ARUP Consult
• ARUP Online Scientific Resource
• CHILDx
• ARUP Blood Services
• University of Utah Department of Pathology
• University of Utah School of Medicine
• University Utah Health Care

References

1. ^ Utah Department of Health Preparing to Expand Newborn Tests Utah Department of Heath, accessed June 3, 2011.
2. ^ Pediatric Reference Interval Project CHILDx, accessed June 3, 2011.
3. ^ Spotlight: Carl Wittwer and the LightCycler Idaho Technology, accessed June 3, 2011.
4. ^ "ARUP Wins Fortune Award" The Enterprise, accessed May 10, 2008.
5. ^ "Six U.S. Organizations Receive National Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award" redOrbit, accessed June 3, 2011.