In the '70s and '80s, the big computer companies were IBM, Digital Equipment Company, HP with the HP 3000 minicomputers. And as you move from basic lab to the more frontier genetic and molecular tests, the stakes are only going up. As you pointed out, diagnostics may represent only a fraction of total healthcare costs, but arguably those insights touch upward of 70% of downstream, longitudinal care. Q: That's a key distinction-moving beyond simply providing the data itself to actually deciphering the insights. Because increasingly, as you move away from the chemistries and into genetics and molecular, as you start to think about the useful attachment of that data to the things that are really going to advance health care, you realize that the information and services are becoming more important. We're in the business of empowering better health with diagnostic insights,' which we define as diagnostic information services. So when I joined, we said, 'Yes, we're one of the world's largest labs, but that's not our business. Toward true sustainability: 8 lessons on building a cost-disciplined enterprise And if you think about 70%, you have this incredible leverage opportunity. Diagnostics is only 2% to 3% of health care costs, and yet 70% of decision-making in health care is based upon those lab values-that expensive next choice you make is very dependent on the results of the biopsy, the CBC, the cholesterol test. And the contribution I saw in health care innovation is diagnostics, because it is at the beginning of every costly decision. I joined Quest Diagnostics to make a larger contribution. If you think about what we do, sure we're the world's largest laboratory-but I didn't join Quest Diagnostics to run the world's largest laboratory. So you're exactly right, Eric-that has become a reality. And hospitals would send out what testing could not be done as economically in a hospital setting and as well as in a central location. So he envisioned a day when there would be independent labs like ourselves where you have large hubs with physicians. Paul Brown's vision was that the laboratory industry should do more of this in common through central locations. So from that NYC apartment company formation all the way to today-how would you define Quest's value proposition? Paul Brown founded Quest in 1967 out of a single-room Manhattan apartment-with a $500 loan from his father-in-law to start the company, he used his bathtub as a staining area for Pap test slides for cervical cancer, and his wife would drive specimens around town with their kids in the backseat.įifty-two years later, I think we can conclude-in light of the geographic presence I described a moment ago-that Brown's vision is on its way to being realized. Now, before we talk about who Quest is today, let's go back for a moment to your corporate origins. Q: That drives the point home even more forcefully. Steve Rusckowski: Actually, Eric, if you take out Kaiser, we have 96% of insured lives. Overall, you touch one-in-three Americans, with access to more than 90% of insured lives in the country. In other words, you guys are ubiquitous-not too many unmarked spots on the map. I'd like to first ask you about the scale of the company-while you're predominantly focused in the United States, with almost 50,000 employees and 7,000 access points, you also have a global presence. Question: Steve, you're in your eighth year helming Quest Diagnostics, the $8 billion leader in diagnostic information services.

Steve Rusckowski, chair, president, and CEO of Quest Diagnostics

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