And in cardiovascular disease, we are pleased at the growing recognition of the value of our AccuType® CP test from physicians, patients and health plans. This test helps assess a patient’s response to the anti-clotting drug Plavix®.
We launched a new prescription drug monitoring service to help our physician clients ensure patient safety and compliance. Revenues continued to climb as we educated the marketplace about the benefits.
We also made significant strides with our healthcare IT strategy, which helps drive customer loyalty and growth.
Our Care360® EHR was certified for “meaningful use,” which means our physician clients who use it can qualify for government incentives of up to $44,000. More than 1,600 doctors are using Care360® EHR. As we exited 2010, our customers were using the eprescribing feature of Care360® at an annualized rate of 22 million medications, up 70% compared to the end of 2009.
We are also very proud of our new electronic patient health record, Gazelle®, which has now been downloaded 22,000 times and has more than 10,000 patients registered and actively using it.
Work with health plans
We see continued strong interest from health plans and employers in working collaboratively on reducing high-cost and out-of-network lab utilization.
We extended several of our managed care contracts to increase access certainty and pricing visibility. As we look forward in 2011, we have good visibility into health plan pricing with no major contract renewals through 2012.
Increase operating efficiency
We continue to improve our operating efficiency, even after the significant cost reductions we have made in recent years. We have carefully managed costs to align them with changing volume levels, and will continue to do so.
Deploy cash effectively
We generate strong cash flow and are committed to deploying our cash to drive growth. Our preference is to invest in acquisitions, primarily in genetics, esoteric testing and cancer diagnostics, including anatomic pathology.
When acquisitions are not available on reasonable terms, we will return cash to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. In 2010, we returned $750 million dollars to our shareholders through share repurchases. In addition, following the release of our year−end earnings in January, we agreed to repurchase at a negotiated price 15.4 million shares of our common stock from our largest shareholder, an affiliate of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK). After the transaction, GSK no longer held any shares of common stock of Quest Diagnostics. That transaction enabled us to take advantage of a unique opportunity to enhance shareholder value and demonstrate confidence in the long term outlook for our business.
We continue to actively evaluate opportunities for acquisitions. Apart from fold-in acquisitions, we are focused on acquiring genetic and esoteric capabilities to further strengthen our positions in areas such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and infectious disease.