The Concept Of Automation

It is no secret that healthcare reform is desperately needed. Higher costs and increased competition have administrators in great need of ways to reduce costs and eliminate waste, without sacrificing quality of care. This has brought the benefits of automation to the spotlight.

The Australian healthcare system is universal meaning that it is "an organized healthcare system that provides healthcare benefits to all persons in a specified region." (1) This is delivered to the public through Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme , and public hospitals, to support these health services there are many funding strategies in place. To achieve the objective of providing accurate results to diagnose and treat patients. Medical scientists work with laboratory technicians, general practitioners , and pathologists. In recent years, there have been many advancements in technologies to decrease the risk of human error and provide faster results however this may have an impact on the current role of medical scientists as a result of these new emerging machines.

In the medical field, inventory is crucial to the daily activities of a clinical trial research lab. Inventory could be based on reagents, parts, gloves or any other form of daily used items. Keeping track of the daily usage is essential to making sure patients get the results needed in a timely fashion. Some tests at Covance Central Laboratory Services have short times to get the results back to the doctors, which usually consist of 24 hour turn around times, while other more complex testing could go up to around 10 days. If the inventory is not monitored, testing could be affected where patients could potentially pay the price.

Measurement uncertainty: this type of uncertainty is caused during the coarse of the process starting from placing the sample in the analyzer till it produces results. These changes include calibration of machine volume of sample and reagents etc.

Quality and speed are not contradictory outcomes but dependent variables necessary to drive down cost while ensuring appropriate patient outcomes. Improving the availability and the speed of information and procedures governing operations can improve both operational efficiencies and patient outcomes. Whether it is seeing more patients, performing more procedures, or ensuring the receipt of correct medications, technology and its proper adoption can support a health

patients. The primary components of the manual system are scheduling patient appointments, maintaining patient dental records and recoding financial information. Due to increase competitive pressure, Dr Patel desire to automate his customer records and billing.

The principle of audit is to evaluate the processes (pre-examination-examination-post examination) and their compliance with ISO 15189, INAB guidelines and policy document and other external document as required. Audits fulfil a number of functions in this regard by ensuring compliance with laboratory policy, system and procedures and providing an effective means of corrective action for issues which may arise. The audit also provide mechanism for step-wise continuous improvement. The vertical audit was discussed in the staff meeting.

There are possible areas where current work processes can be automated. Baptist Memorial Healthcare was the first hospital to invest in medical robotics in the Mid-South area to perform a minimal invasive surgery. Due to robotic use, the surgery is done with precision, smaller incisions, decreased blood loss, less pain, and quicker healing time. “Imaging and robotics technologies provide surgeons with the advanced eye and hand to perform their surgeries in a safe and more accurate manner” (Masamune & Hong, 2011). The physician can see images of the patient and control the robot through a computer he/she does not need to be in the room, or even at the same location as the patient. This means that a specialist can operate on a patient who is

How automation in heath can improve various challenges in terms of efficiency and quality improvement and a faster response rate. However , automation will come with its own challenges in technology implementation and reduced manpower deployment.

Once the patient and drawing area have been attended and taken care of, the next step for the phlebotomist is to invert and accurately label all the specimens drawn with the patient’s identification, date of time (DOT), and signature of the phlebotomist. If the phlebotomist performed the proper order of draw, this part should be completed fairly quickly. Lastly, the phlebotomist needs to send the collected specimens off to the lab by doing so, this will ensure the specimens retain their qualities long enough for testing. Although, this is controllable, once it goes to the lab the phase goes to the analytical

Opportunities * Bench people – lab technicians are the most concerned and need to be targeted * 70% of blood tests are done in hospitals * Significant revenue for commercial labs came from

The medical laboratory is a highly complex entity that is mainly broken down into four major departments and several smaller departments. The main four departments consist of chemistry, hematology, microbiology, and transfusion services. The smaller departments include specimen collection, processing and send outs, urinalysis and coagulation studies. There are also several up and coming departments that are becoming a more intricate part of the laboratory such as molecular and flow cytometry which will be discussed later in this paper. These departments work together by analyzing different aspects of the patient’s clinical presentation which all come together in the patient’s diagnosis. The methods and instrumentation in which these

Laboratories have an advantage over other areas of health care through a long history of using CAP units as a statistical measure for volume. CAP units, however, may fall short when used to measure resource consumption. Some observers argue that workload recording relates quite well to labor consumed but may cause distortion in highly automated labs.

Also, it will be an opportunity to collect feedbacks and get suggestions from doctor so the engineers can be able to improve the product and solve recurring issues.

“Diagnostic Services facilities the provision of timely, cost-effective, and high quality diagnostic care in safe and secure environments. It includes the clinical services of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Radiology, and Nuclear Medicine. These services function in the settings of ambulatory care, acute care, mental health, geratric and rehabilitative care” (2016, Patient Care Services). The advancements in medical technology are growing rapidly and becoming more beneficial not only to doctors but patients as well. The benefits of the advancements in technology allow doctors to use more preventive measures when it comes to life-threatening diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.