Post on 26-May-2018
transcript
Interview with Nina Beikert, Managing Director of Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH
Greater than the sum of its parts When a new company achieves the feat of establishing itself in a saturated market within just a couple of years, it must be doing something right. Admittedly, Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH did not start out completely from zero when it was established in 2011. It was founded through the merger of the laboratory services of the two leading hospital pro-viders in Berlin, Charité and Vivantes. It was thought that the merger of the erstwhile com-petitors could create favourable synergies and allow the new entity to open itself to the ex-ternal market. This vision has already become a reality and Labor Berlin is now one of the biggest providers of laboratory diagnostics in Germany.
With more than 10% annual
growth in the external sales over
the last five years, Labor Berlin is
growing significantly faster than
the market. Managing Director
Nina Beikert attributes this phe-
nomenal success to its unique
history. “Of all the providers cur-
rently active in the market, we are
the one that best understands the
needs of hospital clients,” she ex-
plains. “We started out in hospitals
and are well accustomed to work-
ing together with them and finding
ways to optimize their processes to
ensure better patient care.”
Anyone who has ever spent any
time in hospital as a patient will
be familiar with the daily routine
of blood and other tests. “We deal
with over 13,000 patient samples
every day and cover more than
80% of the available hospital beds
in Berlin,” says Ms. Beikert. “We
deliver results within 30 minutes
for emergencies and within three
hours for routine diagnostics.” As
well as speed, Labor Berlin also
guarantees quality. “We work for a
university-affiliated teaching hos-
pital where the demands are par-
ticularly high,” adds Ms. Beikert.
“Furthermore, many of our labora-
tory heads also perform functions
within the teaching hospital so that
when a clinician rings up about a
test, they find themselves talking
to their peers, someone with an
intimate knowledge of the situation
in the hospital. This means that
we can be sure of speaking the
same language as our clients and
offering them the right consulting
and diagnostics.” As 70% of all di-
agnosis are based on the result of
laboratory tests, quality is a crucial
aspect of the service.
Diagnostic testing is an evolving
field of medicine in which novel
tests for new diseases are con-
stantly being developed. Labor
Berlin is also at the forefront of
these developments, investing
750,000 EUR this year alone in
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Over 70% of medical diagnosis are based on labora-tory diagnostics
Labor Berlin deals with 13,000 patient samples eve-ry day, returning results within less than three hours
Nina Beikert, Managing Director of Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH
erpabsnslyt
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Labor Berlin – Charité Vivantes GmbH Sylter Strasse 2 13353 Berlin Germany
+49 30 405026100 +49 30 405026600
info@laborberlin.com www.laborberlin.com
application-relevant research and
development on highly innovative
projects that will allow it to maintain
its quality leadership in the future.
“We have placed great emphasis
on excellence in all areas of our
business,” states Ms. Beikert. “Our
laboratories are equipped with the
latest state-of-the-art automated
analyzers while we have also been
at pains to recruit experts who are
specialized in the various areas of
expertise required.”
Labor Berlin employs more than
550 people at thirteen laboratories
located in hospitals across Berlin.
Its proximity to its hospital clients
allows it to guarantee a prompt
service. “One of the reasons be-
hind the merger was also to target
other clients like external hospitals
or private practitioners,” says Ms.
Beikert. “This we have achieved
by targeting big hospitals as well
as specialized practices such as
oncologists or nephrologists, for
whom high quality of diagnostics
and consultation from their labora-
tory is essential.” Since the merger,
the ratio of third party work under-
taken by Labor Berlin has risen to
almost 20%. “It has been very suc-
cessful and allowed us to create
more than 100 additional jobs,”
adds Ms. Beikert. “What is more,
we have been able to expand our
radius of activity beyond Berlin.
For example we cooperate with
German Red Cross clinics as well
as leading hospitals in cities such
as Frankfurt and Chemnitz.”
Innovation is one of the key driv-
ers of this expansion. Thanks to
its pioneering work in dried blood
spot cards, Labor Berlin is able
to carry out diagnostic testing for
clients around the world. “We are
for example offering an innovative
diagnostic tool for patients with
depression,” explains Ms. Beikert.
“On the basis of genetic testing,
we are able to say which family
of medications will work best on
which patients. The focus is cur-
rently on Germany but we also
have samples submitted from far
away.” The ability to work for an in-
novative company operating at the
cutting edge of developments in
its field is a strong pull factor when
recruiting new staff. In addition
Labor Berlin works to create an at-
tractive working environment with
offers aimed at enhancing work/life
balance such as free gym mem-
bership, emergency child care or
a work bicycle for the daily com-
mute. “We want to help our em-
ployees achieve their career goals
as well as lifestyle aims,” says Ms.
Beikert. “As a young, creative and
dynamic company, we want our
working conditions to reflect that
ethos. We have also implemented
Trainee programmes for laboratory
technicians and even medical spe-
cialists to ensure we maximize the
pool of potential candidates from
which we can recruit. After getting
off to such a strong start, our goal
is on sustainable growth in the
coming years.” There are plenty of
topics to keep Labor Berlin busy
in the future. “A big issue at the
moment is the problem of over-
prescription of antibiotics,” says
Ms. Beikert. “We want to see how
we can structure diagnostic testing
in such a way that antibiotics are
only used when they are needed.
But other medications could also
be dosed more effectively, thus re-
ducing side effects for the patient
and society. These are all projects
where we have a useful contribu-
tion to make.”
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Labor Berlin’s headquarters is next to the Charité Virchow-Klinikum in Berlin Wedding
Labor Berlin’s thirteen laboratories in Berlin are equipped with state-of-the-art automated analyzers
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