New technologies for laboratory productivity

The laboratory at St. Joseph Hospital in Kirkwood, MO was experiencing serious inefficiency problems and worker frustration because of its aging wet reagent clinical chemistry analyzers. The hospital replaced the three machines with two complementary Kodak analyzers as a part of a dry slide purchase/equipment lease program and implemented a laboratory information system that interfaces the analyzers with the hospital information system. Among other benefits, test results availability has improved 30%, worker training has gone from two weeks to two to three days and maintenance problems have been eliminated.