Slow Turnaround Time

The concern: slow turnaround time

Time is of the essence when it comes to getting tissue biopsy results back to patients.
But pathology labs face obstacles that can impede the delivery of fast, accurate results:

Manual "dip and dunk" staining can compromise the integrity of tissue samples
Hand labeling can lead to sample misidentification
A lack of sample tracking can lead to lost samples

The more chances for human error and tech-to-tech variability, the greater the risk
of patient misidentification.

Variations in anatomic pathology processes can negatively impact the quality of diagnosis, and workflow bottlenecks delay the speed in which the physician and patient receive laboratory results.

-Winny Tan, PhD
Quoted in an article for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News ⁶

The solution: a more efficient lab

The less time a lab spends completing manual processes and accounting for errors, the more time it can devote to delivering reliable results so patients can begin treatment sooner.

Fully automated, integrated systems streamline the testing process with error reduction and efficiency monitoring capabilities, so you can:

Pull STAT cases as soon as they are ready and deliver to the pathologist, without interrupting the rest of the run
Remotely monitor lab workflow for maximum efficiency
Identify and prevent workflow bottlenecks before they occur
Dramatically reduce errors and diminish time spent locating lost slides, and correcting manual errors

Learn More

Tissue-Based Diagnostics Niche Expanding: Long-Term Health of Sector Dependent on Changes in Approval and Reimbursement

_{6: Tan, Winny. "Tissue-Based Diagnostics Niche Expanding: Long-Term Health of Sector Dependent on Changes in Approval and Reimbursement," Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News 15 May 2010: Vol. 30 No.10.}

Errors and Solutions

The pathologist's diagnosis of a tissue sample plays a key role in determining what kind of treatment patients receive, and what sort of outcomes they can expect. But because of errors such as mislabeling and cross contamination, specimens in the lab can be mistaken for those of another patient, leading to misdiagnosis.

Slide and Cassette Labeling

Hand labeling creates the potential for errors that can occur at a number of touch points in the pathology lab as a patient's tissue biopsy is processed.

Cross Contamination

In many labs today, the primary staining process is completed manually through "dipping and dunking" slides into shared reagent baths.

Lost Samples

In the diagnostic process, tissue is precious. Going back for more tissue is difficult and sometimes impossible. For this reason, each tissue sample must be closely protected, every step of the journey through the pathology lab.

Generic Treatment

What works for one patient may be ineffective or even harmful for another. In order to build the most effective treatment plan, pathologists need:

The ability to be not only diagnostic, but also prognostic and predictive about how a patient will respond to a particular therapy or drug
The ability to share information with fellow pathologists quickly, in order to gain outside opinions on difficult cases

Slow Turnaround Time

Time is of the essence when it comes to getting tissue biopsy results back to patients.
But pathology labs face obstacles that can impede the delivery of fast, accurate results:

Manual "dip and dunk" staining can compromise the integrity of tissue samples
Hand labeling can lead to sample misidentification
A lack of sample tracking can lead to lost samples

...