Alberta Health Services extending Dynalife lab services contract for five years
Alberta Health Services (AHS) has reached an agreement in principle with Dynalife to continue to provide lab testing services in Edmonton and northern Alberta.
AHS president and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu confirmed in an email statement that negotiations are continuing with Dynalife to extend its current work by another five years to March 2022.
Yiu said the agreement “provides stability and predictability for staff and patients while AHS and Alberta Health (ministry) transition to a new provincial model for laboratory services in Alberta.”
The extension comes a year after Health Minister Sarah Hoffman ordered AHS to cancel plans to negotiate a new $3-billion laboratory contract with an Australian-based health-care company.
In 2014, Sonic Healthcare was named the preferred vendor for a proposed 15-year contract with AHS.
That sparked an aggressive appeal by Dynalife, the company that had done much of the lab work in the Edmonton region for years.
The appeal panel sided with Dynalife and found AHS had “breached its duty of fairness” in the request for proposal process in a “substantive” manner, former AHS president Vickie Kaminski said in August 2015.
The new letter of intent with Dynalife was signed Aug. 17. AHS hopes to have a contract signed by the end of September.