Beckman Coulter Becomes First Diagnostics Company to Offer Workflow Automation Specifically for Mid-Volume Laboratories

Beckman Coulter (Brea, CA, USA) has announced the global launch of the DxA 5000 Fit, a workflow-automation solution designed to fit into medium-sized labs that run fewer than 5,000 tests a day.

The clinical laboratory has gone through trial by fire in 2020, where total testing was 245% of baseline volumes, with ~55% being SARS-CoV-2 molecular tests. Despite vaccines, many industry players suggest SARS-CoV-2 testing volumes would not be impacted in the near term, and the demand for COVID-19-related testing will continue through 2021 and potentially into 2022. This means that testing-volume pressure on labs is going to continue.

Labs of all sizes are facing the same challenges: shortage of laboratory technologists and technicians, historic financial pressures on hospitals and health systems, and physically and mentally exhausted laboratory professionals - a pre-pandemic problem that has since been exacerbated. However, the TLA solutions that cater to labs processing high-sample volumes are out of reach for smaller volume labs due to space requirements and infrastructure constraints.

With the DxA 5000 Fit, mid-sized labs can enjoy the same benefits as larger-volume lab. The DxA 5000 Fit’s comprehensive workflow automation reduces up to 80% of manual steps through pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical automation, thereby conserving precious human resources to do higher-value clinical work. It offers intelligent routing with dynamically calculated route planning for rapid and consistent TAT, with STATs always prioritized to deliver results faster. Additionally, its flexible design can be adapted to meet a mid-volume lab's space and infrastructure constraints.

"At Beckman Coulter, we believe that medium-size labs should be able to leverage the benefits of automation to address their challenges. Just because your lab is not processing a higher number of samples, doesn't mean you have to sacrifice the benefits of intelligent laboratory automation and settle for a marginally automated workcell-plus solution," said Dr. Peter Soltani, senior vice president & general manager, hematology, urinalysis & workflow information technology solutions at Beckman Coulter. "This is why we have launched DxA 5000 Fit, the first compact workflow automation solution that's the right fit for mid-volume labs because automation should be for all labs."