Laboratory characteristics:
- privately owned laboratory, founded 1977
- serving the Lake of Constance region (two counties with appr. 870,000 inhabitants)
- 42 employees (MD’s, PhD, Tech, field)
- we are serving:
- 8 regional hospitals (largest: 425 bed unit/13,000 patients/2008)
- > 350 office physicians
- pharmaceutical and food industries, Constance university
Sample development and workforce
- increasing number of orders in PCR and bacteriology
- increasing requirements for QA
- decrease in available high trained personnel
- need for automation
Sample types and diversity:
27570 orders were processed in 2010 with an average of 1.98 specimens per order. The most prevalent sample types were swabs (33%) followed by urines and stool. Due to sender specific requirements, as much as 87 protocols are in use for automated streaking!
