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Multicenter Study
. 2021 Feb 18;59(3):e01969-20.
doi: 10.1128/JCM.01969-20. Print 2021 Feb 18.

Benefits Derived from Full Laboratory Automation in Microbiology: a Tale of Four Laboratories

Karissa Culbreath  1 , Heather Piwonka  2 , John Korver  3 , Mir Noorbakhsh  4
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Benefits Derived from Full Laboratory Automation in Microbiology: a Tale of Four Laboratories

Karissa Culbreath et al. J Clin Microbiol. .

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.

Keywords: efficiency; laboratory automation.

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Figures

FIG 1
FIG 1
Turnaround times for TC through evaluation period. Pre-WASP 2015, no automation in the clinical laboratory; WASP 2015, initial implementation of the WASP alone; FLA 2016, initial integration of FLA; FLA 2018, implementation of algorithm-assisted FLA.
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