How to ensure timely, accurate results with your next analyzer purchase

In today’s changing healthcare landscape, testing labs realise that their performance, competitiveness, and sustainable success are heavily linked to their ability to deliver reliable results quickly. 

This supports timely and appropriate clinical decisions, which potentially lead to more effective disease management strategies, high quality of care, and ultimately, improved patient satisfaction.^1,2

Invest in equipment and systems that offer:

• Reliability: Maximal uptime of equipment
• Automation: Minimal manual intervention required
• Standardisation: Unified platforms for more efficient operations and workflow

Implementation of newer, more advanced systems with automated technology can improve operational efficiencies to enable better patient care, as well as reduce workflow demands and free up staff for other, more critical tasks.³

Reliability of your equipment and vendor are not just a convenience - they are critical to maximising lab performance and maintaining standards of care.

Unplanned system breakdowns not only cause stress but can also result in a lack of confidence in results and time-consuming, hands-on workarounds that reduce the overall productivity in the lab.

The importance of reliability

For today's leading labs, reliability is the foundation for everything they do:⁴

• Accurate results
• Fast and predictable turnaround times
• Cost, time, and workflow efficiency
• Maximum revenue
• High team morale & engagement
• Clinician and patient satisfaction

Tips in purchasing your next analyser:

A new analyser is a major, long term investment. But it's not just about the product – it's about the vendor too. Make sure to investigate and obtain published data on these top criteria to assure that your purchase is the right one: 

• High instrument mean time between failure (MTBF) 
• Thorough pre-launch evaluation studies in real lab settings
• Large installation base
• Leading service and support

Tasks requiring staff intervention are time consuming and costly. These include manual, repetitive jobs such as reagent preparation, calibration, and maintenance.

Potential benefits of automating manual tasks⁴

• Decreased test errors
• Improved sample turnaround time 
• Enhanced team engagement due to the possibility to focus on more meaningful tasks

Tips in purchasing your next analyser:

When purchasing a new instrument, it is important to consider the availability of automated features that may decrease manual manipulation and improve the workflow: 

• Automated system maintenance 
• Automated guidance on reagent supplies needed to operate the instrument without interruption for a predetermined amount of time 
• Automated calibration

The Center of Disease Control (CDC) defines lab standardisation as when “test results with the same, high levels of accuracy and precision can be reproduced across measurement systems, laboratories, and over time.”⁴

Standardisation provides labs with unified platforms, which are the foundation for more efficient operations and workflow. Without lab standardisation, true efficiency cannot exist.

Potential benefits of standardisation:⁴

• Alleviates need to re-baseline and re-interpret results, saving time and resources 
• Allows patient result comparability across various instruments in a lab network
• Simplifies staff training, workflows, and inventory management with common operability, processes, and disposables
• Solutions work seamlessly together for optimal compatibility and reliability (e.g. pre-analytics, analytics, middleware IT)
• Simplified support and invested partner to troubleshoot challenges with
• Supports higher-level goals, such as interpreting greater health trends for population health management.

Tips in purchasing your next analyser:

While many labs are seeking the benefits of standardisation, every vendor defines standardisation differently. For example, some vendors may define standardisation as vendor consolidation. However, this may not align with the benefits of true standardization, as a single vendor may not use a single analytical platform across labs of different  sizes.

Therefore, it is imperative to look closely at the level of standardisation offered and select a partner that offers: 

• Standardised systems for low to mid and high volume labs to be able to efficiently cover the varying needs of the labs across your healthcare network
• Common reagents and consumables across the systems in your lab network to simplify workflows and inventory management 
• One common user interface to simplify the training of your team and enable them to work across different locations and support each other through absences 
• Pre-analytic and analytic tools to maximise standardisation, comparability, and reliability