by Raymond Castro, Director of Strategic Programs, Transport Automation at Swisslog Healthcare
As the health industry evolves, medical laboratory professionals grapple with an overwhelming number of deliveries, including samples that must be analyzed and shared with the medical professionals treating patients.
Playing a crucial role in patient care, medical laboratories face challenges like human error reduction and pressure for faster analysis and diagnoses. There can be serious consequences in the medical laboratory if those challenges are not avoided, and automation can help solve those problems. By automating repetitive tasks such as data entry, delivery, inventory management, and more, medical laboratory professionals can focus more on what truly matters: patient care. Automation can even help professionals find work-related satisfaction by empowering them to prioritize the core functions of their job, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes
Medical Laboratory Professionals Week was just last week, a time of year where we celebrate those whose vital work often goes unnoticed by the general public. While these professionals appreciate the celebration, there’s more to it. Some professionals may also appreciate support from healthcare automation companies and their services, new technology and enhanced supplies. This can include pneumatic tube systems, which propel cylindrical carriers containing critical items through tube networks across a facility or campus, including test samples to the medical laboratory.
With the help of these automation services to optimize workflows in the medical laboratory, these vital professionals can significantly reduce human error, instilling a sense of confidence in their work and enabling better patient care.
Increasing efficiency, decreasing errors
Automation also plays a critical role outside the medical laboratory, including medication delivery. Medicines can get to patients quicker, fewer medical professionals can serve more patients, and medications are filled with fewer errors, reducing liability and waste.
According to a National Institutes of Health publication, nearly 7,000 Americans are affected by medication dispensing errors. Not only can medication be filled much faster and with greater accuracy, but with fewer employees needed for tasks with the help of automation, hospitals can maintain high levels of care and meet a surge of demand even when there isn’t enough staff to provide care. When there is more time in the workflow, medical laboratories and medical care professionals can spend more time addressing patient needs.
Pneumatic tube systems are one of the primary automation solutions medical laboratory professionals use daily. As a network of tunnels that deliver items like medicine, lab samples, and supplies around the hospital, the pneumatic tube system can deliver items up to 20 times faster than a human can, which is a massive help in ensuring patients get what they need quickly. Although they’ve been on the market for many years, they allow medical laboratories to pass efficiencies to other departments and can be customized to meet the unique transport needs of every healthcare facility. If the medical laboratory analyzes samples quickly, they need to be rapidly transported to reap the efficiency of medical laboratory automation.
Medical laboratories can take the pneumatic tube system solution one step further by embedding Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in the carriers. As an upgrade to the carriers, RFID enables medical laboratory professionals to segregate carriers efficiently with specific routes, like the laboratory. A single station can send carriers to different departments throughout a hospital as needed, drastically reducing the resources needed to transport materials across a facility.
Transporting materials through the tube system also tracks where items are, ensuring nothing gets lost or tampered with. For example, the carriers can be embedded with RFID tags, then designated in red, indicating they’re meant to transport blood samples to the lab. Once those samples are delivered to the lab, the carriers can be reintegrated into the system without manually inputting the destination. The RFID system automatically routes the carriers back to their original station, streamlining the workflow in the lab and reducing the human error of manually inputting the location. Simple updates to already established technologies, like RFID tags, can be the medical laboratory's final step to optimize the workflow process fully.
‘Updated’ automation technology
By incorporating automation solutions, medical laboratories can be prepared for future challenges. If medical laboratory professionals experience faster delivery times of samples, they can conduct faster analysis, which leads to an expedited treatment process for the patient, which is what all healthcare professionals should aspire to. Automation technology is already used in medical laboratories and, to some degree, is an inevitable part of hospital operations. Why stay behind the competition when automation solutions can easily be integrated to drive medical laboratory operations at their full potential?
Sometimes technology that has been around for literally a century could seem “old.” But with technology like pneumatic tube systems, it continuously evolves to support the growing needs of test and learn facilities. By embedding technology like pneumatic tube systems, a service provided by TransLogic, a Swisslog Healthcare company, human error and delivery times of critical sample items can be significantly reduced, allowing professionals to spend time doing what they love: patient care.
The synergy between automation and healthcare can redefine the standards of excellence in the medical laboratory, offering a hopeful and optimistic future for medical laboratory professionals.
About the author: With over 15 years of experience in product management and development, Raymond Castro currently serves as the Director of Strategic Programs, Transport Automation at Swisslog Healthcare. His professional journey highlights a unique blend of hands-on design skills, customer empathy, and business acumen. Holding a Bachelor of Science in Product Development from Metropolitan State University of Denver, Raymond specializes in managing cross-functional teams, nurturing global partnerships, and leading product launches. At Swisslog Healthcare, Raymond creates market-driven solutions, drives innovation, and develops go-to-market strategies for new products and services.