Improved standardization and potential for shortened time to results with BD Kiestra™ total laboratory automation of early urine cultures: A prospective comparison with manual processing

• Urine specimens processed by TLA and manually yielded highly concordant results.
• TLA was associated with improved standardization.
• TLA allowed shortening of incubation time and therefore time to results.

We compared the results of 505 urine specimens prospectively processed by both conventional manual processing (MP) with 16–24 h incubation to BD Kiestra™ Total Laboratory Automation (TLA) system with a shortened incubation of 14 h: 97% of culture results were clinically concordant. TLA processing was associated with improved standardization of time of first culture reading and total incubation time.