Quest Diagnostics was named to a Becker's list of top places to work, plus five more updates on the lab company in the last 60 days:
1. According to a Quest report, the majority of physicians believe medicine is on the verge of groundbreaking new treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Quest's report found that 77 percent of physicians surveyed believe new treatments will turn Alzheimer's into a manageable disease, and 84 percent believe early testing for Alzheimer's risk will lead to earlier and improved management of the disease.
Half of physicians surveyed do not think Alzheimer's will ever have a cure. However, nearly all believe that blood tests will become the standard of care, will help identify patients for clinical trials, and will improve the quality and speed of clinical trials.
2. While telehealth and at-home health screening are popular with employees, many of them have issues with data privacy and who the results will be shared with, according to Quest's 2022 Health at Work survey.
The vast majority of employees (89 percent) said health screenings or wellness programs are essential benefits in order to consider an employer a top choice. Almost 90 percent of employees were happy with the concept of at-home biometric testing, and three quarters of employees said they would have more health screenings if they could do them at home.
3. Quest was named to Becker's 2022 list of the 150 top places to work in healthcare.
4. Quest said April 21 that it netted $2.61 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2022, down 4 percent from the same period in 2021. The company said its diluted earnings per share were $2.92, down 15.6 percent from 2021. Excluding COVID-19 testing, the company pulled in $2.01 billion, up more than 6 percent year-over-year.
COVID-19 testing revenues fell from $828 million in the first quarter of 2021 to $599 million in the first quarter of 2022, a drop of 27.6 percent. Quest now expects its full year 2022 net revenue to land between $9.2 billion and $9.5 billion, with a per-share earning between $7.88 and $8.38.
5. Quest said April 20 that it appointed five executives, with one filling a new role for the company.
6. Quest partnered with Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems to expand its offering of diabetic retinal imaging services. Quest said April 4 that the IRIS platform for diabetic retinopathy screening will be available at Quest's patient service centers. The platform was previously only available to Quest patients through its HealthConnect business.