Automated Workflow A New Norm For Pathlabs

Pathlabs in the future will be strongly backed by automation and digital technologies that will enable pathology to become more efficient and scalable

Automated workflows have been regarded as important tools for clinical laboratories to achieve efficiency, accuracy, standardisation, quality and patient data safety. For a variety of reasons, however, many Indian laboratories in the past have been slow to adopt these technologies as a broad strategy. Nevertheless, with an increasing demand for higher levels of performance, the need for automated workflows are becoming more and more essential. Moreover, with increasing clearance by the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies in Europe, automated workflows are slowly but steadily becoming a new norm in clinical laboratory practice, ensuring diagnostic accuracy and improved result turnaround time (TAT). When automated workflows are integrated with digital information systems these technologies work wonders for a laboratory, inform experts.

“We have been using automated workflows and have witnessed a considerable difference in capacity and efficiency. We conduct over 25000 tests on a daily basis including routine as well as specialised tests, with routine tests obviously forming a larger chunk. Given the sheer volumes of tests conducted, higher throughput becomes critical. We use the automated workflows for primarily routine clinical chemistry tests followed by specialised chemistry,” shares Dr Ajay Phadke, Centre Head, SRL Dr Avinash Phadke Labs.