The Disadvantages of Automation in Clinical Microbiology

The procedures of clinical microbial diagnosis are complicated and expensive, the potential advantages expected from implementation of Total laboratory automation (TLA) are not just a plain shift from the manual specimen processing methodologies towards mechanisation. On the contrary, the transition towards automation should involve a critical change in the basic functioning of the laboratory and motivate users to reassess the methods in use, which leads to accuracy in identifying pathogenic microbes and the antimicrobial sensitivity tests. Designing TLA for a microbiology laboratory is a complicated procedure and exhibits some potential obstacles, mainly in the form of a higher initial expenditure, enhanced costs of supplies, space and infrastructural constraints, overcrowding of personnel, enhanced noise and heat generation, higher downtime risk, psychological dependence, and many more. In the current chapter, we give an outline of the limitations associated with over-dependence on TLA, despite the ease of working in a fully automated environment.