Clinical lab automation
Most clinical lab errors happen outside the analyzer.
Kinesis Labs builds benchtop robots that connect to your LIS and do the hands-on work on both sides of testing — from the sealed courier bag to the archive fridge — the same way at 3 a.m. as at 3 p.m.
- Pre-analytical
- Analyzer hand-off
- Post-analytical
- LIS-integrated
How it works
From the courier bag to the archive fridge.
One station on the bench you already have, wired into your LIS, middleware and instruments. Scroll to run it through every step.
- Opens the sealed courier bag and pulls out the tubes and the requisition.
- Reads label, tube type, fill and integrity, and flags any conflict with the order.
- Checks each accepted tube into the LIS, linked to its order.
- Routes to spin, no-spin or hold. Held tubes wait for a person.
- Balances the rack, runs the right protocol, unloads when it stops.
- Decaps, splits primaries into labelled daughter tubes and loads analyzer racks.
- Stays exactly as it is. Loaded in the order your middleware expects.
- Pulls racks the moment results release and closes every tube.
- Stores each tube in indexed fridge racks, its position written to the LIS.
- Finds any tube for an add-on or rerun, and clears expired ones by policy.
- Before the analyzer
- At the analyzer
- After the analyzer
Held specimens are deliberately not accessioned, so nothing downstream can pull, bill or treat them as received until a person rules on them.
Every job is checked before and verified after: order, tube and destination must agree before a tube moves, and cameras confirm the result before the LIS is updated.
Receiving runs on the bench prototype today. Each further step is a new trained skill on the same two arms.
On the bench
Receiving first, working real tubes.
Each task runs in simulation first, then on the bench: the arm reads each specimen, decides what happens to it, and checks the accepted ones into the LIS. The bench clip plays muted — unmute for the audio.
- Reads the requirementReasons through what the ordered test needs, and takes only a specimen that satisfies it.
- Holds the bad onesDetects error specimens and sets them aside instead of passing them downstream.
- Decides what gets spunKnows which specimens go to the centrifuge, and runs it.
- Accessions in the LISChecks each accepted specimen in directly, so the order and the physical tube are linked.
01Simulation
02Physical
The problem, in numbers
The work around the analyzer is where the errors start and the hours go.
- 46–68%
-
of laboratory errors happen before testing ever starts.
Most lab error is pre-analytical: the wrong tube for the order, a specimen that was never received into the LIS, a tube spun that should not have been. The analyzer is rarely the problem. The bench that creates the problem is the one still run entirely by hand.
Published error-distribution literature - $190–225k
-
a year to keep one bench position staffed around the clock.
Specimens arrive on the courier's schedule, so the bench is covered on three shifts. That is the fully loaded cost, every year, for work that is mostly unbagging, racking, splitting and filing.
BLS wage data, fully loaded - 7–11%
-
of clinical lab positions sit vacant, higher in some regions.
The person you need at 2 a.m. is the hardest one to hire and keep. When the seat is open, the bench gets covered by whoever is available, and that is exactly when the same tube starts being handled two different ways.
Clinical laboratory workforce vacancy data
And another 18–47% of errors happen after the result: add-ons that never reach the tube, reruns on a specimen nobody can find. The analyzer is automated. The hands-on work on both sides of it is not, and it is staffed around the clock by the role that is hardest to fill.
See it on your workflow
Hand the bench to the station.
Tell us which bench work takes your hours, or pick a time to talk it through with Alina.
Get in touch- 20 minutes
- With a licensed CLS
- No slides