At a time when diagnostic bacteriological testing procedures have become more complex
and their associated costs are steadily increasing, the expected benefits of Total
laboratory automation (TLA) cannot just be a simple transposition of the traditional
manual procedures used to process clinical specimens. In contrast, automation should
drive a fundamental change in the laboratory workflow and prompt users to reconsider all
the approaches currently used in the diagnostic work-up including the accurate
identification of pathogens and the antimicrobial susceptibility testing methods. This
review describes the impact of TLA in the laboratory efficiency improvement, as well as
a new fully automated solution for AST by disk diffusion testing, and summarizes the
evidence that implementing these methods can impact clinical outcomes
