“Impact of technology in Clinical laboratory”

Nishihara, Miki

Section 20

According to M. Desmond Burke, MD (2000), The 21st century will witness changes within
the environment of health care, within the nature of medical practice, within
the advancement of modern innovation, and within the practice of laboratory medicine.
Consequently, there are indeed significant development and progressive technological changes
that we cannot unseen in every field, including the clinical laboratory. The
Clinical Laboratory Science is experiencing a “technological explosion” which result to
a critical and significant impact on how clinical laboratories of today and tomorrow are and will be
staffed, prepared, and operated. Innovative advancements within the clinical
laboratory proceed to supply professionals with better approaches to advance the quality of
care conveyed to their patients and improve the state of worldwide healthcare (Healthcare
Business & Technology, 2019). The impact of a technology to clinical laboratory observed in
numerous way; one of these are the “Electronic medical records” and “automation”.

In Clinical laboratory the laboratory personnel is obligated to collect and encode the
information of the patients in either written lag-book or Electronic medical record for future
reference. Electronic medical records are detailed clinical records that are generated, stored,
and accessed on electronic media at the area of patient care (Jason Y Park, 2017). According to
USF Health (2019), Multiple healthcare providers can track patient information over an extended
period of time by adopting EMR. It is intended to assist organizations in providing effective and
accurate care. In the United States, the past decade has been a period of rapid expansion of
electronic patient records. In 2008, only 9% of clinics and 17% of doctors had electronic health
records. As of 2015, 96% of clinics and 78% of physicians utilized electronic health records.
Simple may it seem but this technology contribute to the quality healthcare of the organization
and does have an huge impact to the clinical laboratory due to its
expanded transparency, portability and availability features that increment the ease with which
they can be accessed by healthcare experts.

In the present day, A technology proceeds to have an effect on

the laboratory, particularly with the approach of
the completely automated analytical systems that are having such a significant impact on how
the research facility is staffed, prepared, organized, and worked. According to Vijay Kumar and
Kiran Dip Gill (2018), With a minimum involvement of manpower, the automated instrument are
able to process great workload and it minimizes the chances of variability of results and errors
that generally can occur during manual analysis. The implementation of automation has resulted
in a slight rise in the cost of machinery, which is extremely compensated by a significant reduction
in the cost of employees. As a result, overall expenses fell by 12.55 percent (J Public Health,
2017). Hence, this not only impacted the quality of health care service they can offer but also the
financial section of the organization by cutting a cost without downgrading the quality of service.

Those were the few factors that showcase the impacts of technology in clinical laboratory.
Nevertheless, there is always a two side of a coin; positive or negative. What I have mentioned is
all a positive side, however by knowing its benefits and detriments helps us to utilize the
technology properly. Because currently, technology is crucial in clinical laboratory for the quality
health services and timely diagnosis for the patients. Through the union of health care
professionals, and innovative technologies and services in clinical laboratory, it will be able to
deliver a quality and optimum diagnosis result; and this means maximizing the potential of the
technology for the betterment of majority.
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