LABORATORY MANAGEMENT
Improvements to laboratory process through a molecular work area
Karl McIntyre of Liverpool Clinical Laboratories describes the improvements to pathology process and efficiency which have been delivered by a fully automated molecular work area.
Liverpool Clinical Laboratories (LCL) was established in 2013 and is the largest pathology service provider in Cheshire and Merseyside. October 2023 marked LCL’s ten-year anniversary, which was celebrated with staff and suppliers alike. Over the last ten years, staff at LCL have processed more than 200 million samples, including half a million COVID-19 tests. LCL is part of Liverpool
University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LUHFT). We’ve had our sights set on the goal
of creating a molecular work area since 2015 and finally, in 2022, when the new Royal Liverpool hospital building work was completed, we saw all our existing molecular infection equipment moved into the Clinical Support Services Building (CSSB) a new building on the Royal site,
alongside brand-new equipment in our automated serology area.
But we also wanted to build in a new, automated, integrated laboratory, and that’s where our partnership with Roche Diagnostics came in. The Roche cobas 6800 and cobas 8800 analysers are not new to the market, at LCL we were aware of the potential for these to be married with additional cobas equipment giving tracked pre- and post-analytic capability. Roche helped LCL’s leadership team understand the benefits of an integrated molecular work area and how this could align with goals of service improvement and inter-disciplinary working.
The possibilities of the cobas 8800 and automation aligned with our priorities and strategic aims at LCL, allowing for the further development of our fully automated work area, improved utilisation of our staff grades, and exciting possibilities around multidisciplinary working.
Building the Integrated Core Laboratory
Liverpool Clinical Laboratories was established in 2013 and is part of Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is based on four sites; Aintree Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Royal Liverpool Hospital (pictured above) and Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
WWW.PATHOLOGYINPRACTICE.COM SEPTEMBER 2024
What is an Integrated Core Laboratory? This is the latest incarnation in Roche Diagnostics’ innovation in seamless laboratory workflow, aiming to connect different disciplines. It encompasses laboratory systems, digital solutions and services, so that the capability, throughput and efficiency of the laboratory is maximised and optimised. LCL worked with Roche on the development process of the first molecular work area in the UK to include process optimisation – an intelligent algorithm that streamlines the automated workflows in tracked molecular solutions – which was only the second of those in the world. Roche’s team of engineers, applications specialists, IT and technical managers began facilitating
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