Selective Automation Vital for Clinical Labs to Remain Competitive

While clinical laboratories are vital to the diagnostic industry, they are facing many challenges that will require increased automation in order for them to remain competitive. However, they must not go about the process of implementation arbitrarily without effective workflow analysis, or they may see no real improvements, according to a healthcare market report.

The report, published by healthcare market research publisher Kalorama Information (New York, NY, USA), forecasts US$5.35 billion in sales of clinical lab automation hardware and software in 2010, with growth through 2014 estimated at about 7%. A number of issues are challenging the ability of clinical labs to remain competitive. These challenges include the reduction of government reimbursement rates for lab tests, cost-restraint measures established by the managed care industry, increased government regulations, growing demand for testing as the population ages, a thinning labor pool, and increasingly advanced tests that generate greater amounts of data.

In order to survive in the future, labs will need to run more tests, test in fewer sites, operate with less equipment, maintain lower operating costs, and hire less skilled labor. How can this task be achieved? According to Kalorama, labs will need to harness additional automation.

"Lab automation has moved from a ‘should' to a ‘must,'” noted Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information. "In particular, the non-value-added steps, including such processes as sorting tubes, decapping, centrifugation, loading analyzers, and prepping and sorting materials for storage, are ideal targets for automation.”

The report noted that a typical mid-size to large lab in the United States processes up to 3,000 tests per day. With automation utilizing robotics, a lab can increase its test volume by 20%, reduce sample turnaround times by 11%, and save approximately $100,000 in staff salaries.

In order for lab managers to determine the need and potential benefits of automation, they must undertake a detailed analysis of the current, preautomation, laboratory processes, according to Kalorama analysts. Such workflow analyses demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing process so that an informed decision can be made whether automation will lead to a real improvement. Since most labs are too small to require total lab automation and opting for modular systems instead, it is essential to understand which processes will benefit the most from automation. Any [such] system must be flexible, standardized, and fully integrated.

Kalorama Information supplies independent market research in the life sciences, as well as a full range of custom research services.

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