Abstract
Automation in clinical microbiology is starting to become more commonplace and reportedly offers several advantages over the manual laboratory. Most studies have reported on the rapid turnaround times for culture results, including times for identification of pathogens and their respective antimicrobial susceptibilities, but few have studied the benefits from a laboratory efficiency point of view. This is the first large, multicenter study in North America to report on the benefits derived from automation measured in full-time equivalents (FTE), FTE reallocation, productivity, cost per specimen, and cost avoidance. Pre- and post-full automation audits were done at 4 laboratories that have vastly different culture volumes, and results show that regardless of the size of the facility, improved efficiencies can be realized after implementation of full laboratory automation.
Highlights
Automation in clinical microbiology is starting to become more commonplace and reportedly offers several advantages over the manual laboratory
After the implementation of full laboratory automation (FLA), all specimens were transported to Willis-Knighton Laboratory (WKL) for processing on the Walk-Away specimen processor (WASP), which resulted in an immediate 0.9 full-time equivalents (FTE) savings (Table 2)
When adding in the cost avoidance associated with a 46% volume increase, an additional 3.7 FTE were saved accounting for a total savings of 5.6 FTE or approximately $322,000 annually in labor costs (Table 3)
Summary
Automation in clinical microbiology is starting to become more commonplace and reportedly offers several advantages over the manual laboratory. We are asked to accurately detect antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, screen patients for hospital-acquired infections, provide more and more rapid results to assure decreased patient length of stay, rapidly test hundreds to thousands of patients daily for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and more. All of this is in the face of decreasing laboratory resources. This is the first report of a such a study utilizing Copan’s full laboratory automation (FLA) system
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