Laboratory Automation
Achieving efficiency through lab automation
The following is an excerpt from a new report published by Kalorama Information (New York), “The Worldwide Market for Lab Automation”: “The overused and sometimes misused solution in the quest for efficiency in the clinical lab has been automation. Automation in the laboratory usually means optimizing workflow to increase output, shortening turnaround time in reporting test results, and utilizing less labor. Attempts to accomplish these objectives have focused on applying...
Improving lab automation by applying mechatronics
Mechatronics has contributed to progress in many industrial fields such as robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, automotive, consumer electronics, and medical. Well-known and well-established mechatronics systems include production systems, synergy drives, automated guided vehicles, automotive subsystems such as antilock braking systems, and commonly used spin-assist consumer products such as auto-focus cameras, hard disk drives, compact disc players, and washing machines. The main benefits that...
The Case for Regulating Laboratory-Developed Tests
Part one of this article, published in the November/December 2009 issue of IVD Technology, offered reasons why FDA should regulate laboratory-developed tests (LDT). Part two examines some reasons frequently given for not regulating LDTs and explains why each argument falls short of justifying FDA's inaction.   Imposing FDA regulation on LDTs would disrupt the use of important diagnostic tests   One rationale the agency has asserted is that, while it has the authority to regulate LDTs...
Efficiency through integration in developing IVD platforms
            Figure 1. This large-scale hemostasis analyzer is used in high-volume centralized testing laboratories. Such chronic conditions and common ailments as diabetes, heart disease, and strep throat require frequent monitoring or timely diagnosis. Today, more medical professionals around the world use large-scale IVD systems and small-scale point-of-care (POC) diagnostic platforms and instrumentation to obtain reliable results for common...
Automated plate streaking for better outcomes
          Doug Flammang is vice president, Culture Program Management for bioMérieux Inc. (Marcy l'Etoile, France). He is responsible for coordinating business and R&D activities for all culture-based microbiology products associated with the company. He can be reached at foodinfo@na.biomerieux.com. The streak-plate procedure is the classic method of isolating individual strains of bacteria from a sample. To perform this procedure, a lab worker...
Applying open source software to IVDs
            Carl Herrgesell is new product development practice manager at RTEmd (Pittsford, NY). He can be reached at carl.herrgesell@rtemd.com. According to Dion Cornett, vice president, North America sales at Red Hat (Raleigh, NC), “Today, the chief information officer (CIO) faces challenges that cannot be overcome by technical features alone: reduce costs, drive business innovation, enable competitive advantage, improve customer...
Being innovative while cutting costs
      Several trends in laboratory medicine have affected the development and implementation of automation in lab analyzers during the past few years. Such trends are related to reducing costs, running tests with fewer lab personnel, and maintaining quick turnaround times for test results. IVD manufacturers have been responding to such trends in automation and instrumentation in different ways.   One such trend is automating the preanalytical sample preparation steps...
Optimizing automated liquid handlers
              IVD manufacturers and life science and clinical laboratories have benefited from the recent technological advances in liquid handling (e.g., handheld pipettes, automated liquid handlers). However, since automated liquid handling is a relatively new technology, standardized performance assessment and calibration guidelines do not currently exist. The consequences of poor performance due to liquid handling errors can be severe, such as...
Toward total laboratory automation
            As diagnostic possibilities expand with the advance of genomics and discovery of new disease markers, the burdens of central testing laboratories grow. Multivalent analyzers and the linking of instruments to an automation system can give labs a chance to provide the turnaround speed and throughput physicians and hospitals require. IVD companies are developing the necessary new analyzers. Some are developing the automation tracks larger labs...
Customizing software to prevent unnecessary bar code read failures
            Figure 1. Developing effective interface software allows the user to customize its bar code system to meet application needs.   Laboratory automation systems are ultimately only as accurate as the data they receive. For this reason, it is important to make the bar code identification system of a laboratory instrument as robust as possible in order to prevent misidentifications and avoidable failures to read (i.e., no-...