Clinical Laboratories Considering Total Laboratory Automation Are Increasingly Using Lean Methods to Develop Proposals, Select a Vendor, and Implement the Solution

Top-performing medical laboratories are using Lean to help craft RFPs, evaluate TLA options, then implement the automated systems to achieve optimal quality and productivity In recent years, there’s been a big change in how clinical laboratories purchase total laboratory automation (TLA) solutions, and then integrate this automation into their lab operations. Using a strategy that is somewhat off the radar, top-performing medical laboratories will purchase and install TLA only after applying...

Medical Laboratories in Canada Face Squeeze from a Retiring Labor Force, the Need to Acquire New Diagnostic Technologies, and Increased Demand for Lab Tests

In provinces across Canada, health systems are dealing with limited budgets, growing populations, and the need to transition to personalized medicine Medical laboratories in Canada have something in common with medical laboratories in most other developed nations. Demand for healthcare services exceeds capacity, even as the healthcare system struggles to find adequate funding. This puts pathology labs in a bind, since they are asked to test growing numbers of specimens even as budgets are flat...

Clinical Laboratories Face Deadline to Comply with New Standard for Bar Code Labels on Specimens

Complying with this standard will help reduce errors by improving specimen handling and tracking, and also reduce lab costs by boosting accuracy and quality. Clinical laboratories have about nine months to comply with a new standard for bar code labels. The deadline for compliance to AUTO12-A, Specimen Labels: Content and Location, Fonts, and Label Orientation, is April 29, 2014. While compliance next year will not affect a lab’s accreditation, in the coming years accrediting bodies, such as...

IFCC WorldLab 2011 Conference in Berlin Provides Look at Developing Trends in Clinical Laboratory Testing Products

IVD manufacturers often introduce their newest technologies in Europe before the United States DATELINE: BERLIN, GERMANY: With so many changes happening to clinical pathology laboratory testing in developed nations around the world, there is keen interest in evolving technologies, along with new medical laboratory instruments and automation products that clinical biochemists and pathologists will use, in the near future, to improve the quality of the clinical laboratory testing services they...

More Clinical Pathology Laboratories Are Buying Total Laboratory Automation

Trend is toward increased use of automation, particularly modular and task-targeted solutions, by medical laboratories across the globe Worldwide, growing numbers of clinical pathology laboratories and medical laboratories are purchasing total laboratory automation (TLA) systems. This is evidence that the latest generation of laboratory automation products are more robust in use compared to prior years and can be purchased at a price that produces an acceptable return on investment (ROI)....
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