Automation in clinical microbiology is starting to become more commonplace and reportedly offers several advantages over the manual laboratory. Most studies have reported on the rapid turnaround times for culture results, including times for identification of pathogens and their respective antimicrobial susceptibilities, but few have studied the benefits from a laboratory efficiency point of view. This is the first large, multicenter study in North America to report on the benefits derived from automation measured in full-time equivalents (FTE), FTE reallocation, productivity, cost per specimen, and cost avoidance. Pre- and post-full automation audits were done at 4 laboratories that have vastly different culture volumes, and results show that regardless of the size of the facility, improved efficiencies can be realized after implementation of full laboratory automation.

中文翻译：

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微生物学全面实验室自动化带来的好处：四个实验室的故事

临床微生物学中的自动化开始变得越来越普遍，并且据报道比手动实验室具有多个优势。大多数研究报告了培养结果的快速周转时间，包括鉴定病原体及其各自的抗药性的时间，但很少有人从实验室效率的角度研究其益处。这是北美地区第一个大型，多中心研究，报告了以全时制等效物（FTE）衡量的自动化所带来的收益，FTE重新分配，生产率，每个标本的成本以及避免成本。全面自动化之前和之后的审核是在4个实验室中进行的，这些实验室的培养量大不相同，结果表明，无论设施的规模如何，