Avantages et limites des différents systèmes d'automatisation en bactériologie

Molecular diagnosis and serology laboratories have been automated since several years. Today, culture-based bacteriology is moving towards automation thank to improved midlleware, to new IT solutions, to the use of liquid media for swabs and to availability of MALDI-TOF identification. This automation of diagnostic laboratories will improve the efficiency, will reduce the costs, and may also reduce the time to results thank to earlier detection of colonial growth, by using novel detection algorithm. However, to be fully beneficial, automation should not only rely on a robotisation of human tasks, but should on the contrary be considered as a unique opportunity to fully re-organize the laboratory workflow with well (re)defined lean management processes. This reduced time to results and improved quality should ultimately benefit to patients care.