AUTOMATION AND SIMULATION OF CENTRAL PROCESSING IN CLINICAL LABORATORIES

Automation of 'front-end' pre-analytic sample processing is one of the more interesting problems in the clinical laboratory today. The few s uccessful attempts to do this with conventional technology seem to hav e been incomplete (pipetting stations) or tailor-made and very expensi ve (such as robot-assisted sorting/centrifugation/aliquotting systems) . Starting from robotic experiments (unsuccessful but illuminating) we have developed a relatively simple proprietary technology for aliquot ting from a closed blood collection tube, which is well suited to the needs of the moderate- to high-volume clinical laboratory. An importan t part of the conceptual design and evaluation of this technology has been the use of discrete event simulation. This computer tool permits one to quantify operational characteristics of the technology and comp are expected versus desirable throughput. Alternate designs can be eva luated without having to build many prototypes. Optimal staffing for d ifferent configurations, given variable input patterns, can be estimat ed before the commitment has been made. This permits the user to plan for implementation and prepare the staff. Simulation can be used to st udy the expected impact on specimen flow of various manual, semi-autom atic and automated configurations. This approach can be generalized an d we believe it should be more widely used. It would benefit anyone wh o is designing or applying innovative technology that will change the operational characteristics of the system, especially a system with th e complexity of a busy clinical laboratory.