International Federation of Clinical Chemistry. The expanding role of robotics in the clinical laboratory

Abstract

Increasing numbers of robots are going to be employed industrial chemical laboratories. Most of these will be used to reduce the monotonous tasks of sample preparation, to minimize human exposure to dangerous environments or to carry out huge numbers of repetitive experimental procedures. For example, looking for the most effective condition or combination in chemical synthesis or the best microorganism in a large number of cultures. In the clinical laboratory the situation is slightly different and robotics is not so widely applied in clinical laboratories, but there is a definite trend to employ robots or robotic systems both to reduce labor volume and exposure of employees to possible biohazards and to help get more precise and correct results. These needs will be hard to fulfill via the usual automated devices and especially when adequate devices are not available. Specially designed machines will have to be produced to satisfy these demands and robotics will play a part. Finally we need to evaluate the effectivity of introduction of robotics in terms of economy, strategy, biosafety and other aspects. Typical examples of implementation of robotics in the clinical laboratory are transportation of specimens, front-end automation of sample preparation, separation and aliquotting as well as selected processes in a large scale automation systems. As described previously, robots that are commercially available now, are not intelligent enough to be easily handled by personnel who are not trained for robotics. There is a need for personnel dedicated to robotics who join the project from the very beginning of the plan and who can maintain the system properly.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)