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New technology at CoxHealth is expected to increase patient safety and free up staff to do other things. Michele Skalicky reports.
A new automated robotic line system, in the laboratory at Cox South, processes hematology and chemistry specimens.
Lab Director Gisele Bauman says the new line processes the different blood tubes that are drawn on patients.
The robotic line system called StreamLab puts the tube on the analyzer and pulls out a sample. Once the test is run, the system transports the tube back, takes it off the track and puts it in a rack where it stays until lab technologists are ready to put it in storage.
One advantage of having the new system, Bauman says, is that it frees up technologists to perform other, higher value, activities. She says StreamLab arrived at a time when lab technologists are in short supply.
Another benefit of the new technology, according to Bauman, is that it increases patient safety. She says, with StreamLab, the bar codes on the specimens are checked more frequently.
StreamLab handles all routine chemical analyzing done on blood in the Cox Lab as well as testing the lab does on specimens for coagulation, which Bauman says is a significant portion of the work that they do.
StreamLab carried a price tag of around a half million dollars. It was installed last summer.
For KSMU News, I'm Michele Skalicky.