With increasingly complex processes and escalating productivity demands, labs can’t afford to make mistakes. Automation solutions are key to reducing lab errors, minimizing wastage and turnaround times, and helping labs keep running smoothly in a competitive environment. So, how exactly does automation prevent errors in laboratories?
Common Types of Laboratory Errors
First, let’s be clear on the dramatic impact of automation on minimizing laboratory mistakes: One study found that an automated pre-analytical system used at a clinical lab reduced error rates by around 95%, with a 99.8% reduction in biohazard exposure events. Another analysis estimated that automation devices led to a 90-98% decrease in opportunities for error during blood group and antibody testing. That amounts to massive efficiency benefits for these labs and potentially life-saving improvements for their staff and patients.
Knowing how errors tend to occur is crucial for reducing lab errors. Since modern labs typically have access to high-quality machinery, most mistakes happen during manual processes. The most common types of laboratory errors are related to logistics, preparation, or the transfer of information. The massive gains from automation are largely due to reducing human involvement in lab processes, thereby limiting the chance for human error.
Next, we’ll break down what causes most laboratory errors in each phase of the analytic process.
Pre-Analytical Phase Errors
In clinical testing labs, the bulk of errors (46-68.2%) occur in the pre-analytical phase before any data is collected from a sample. These frequently result from problems with information flow or logistics, such as incorrect sample labeling or identification, mishandling of a sample, or issues during sample transportation. In some cases, an insufficient sample may be provided for analysis, or the sample might even be missing when needed.
Analytical phase errors
A smaller but still considerable proportion of lab errors occur as samples are analyzed (7-13.3%). Many mistakes happen when many samples need to be prepared by hand. Samples may get mixed up between analytic steps, leading to improper testing conditions or loss of identification. Human operators may make mistakes in calibration or device settings. And even with advanced laboratory devices, machines can still break down.
Post-analytical phase errors
Mistakes during the post-analytical phase account for the second largest portion of lab errors (18.5-47%). Data must be collected and stored after a sample has been analyzed, and the sample may need to be stored as a physical record. Many errors can occur when manually transcribing results from machine output. Data processing or interpretation errors, such as using the wrong formula to convert a data point into actionable results, also happen.
Implementing Automation to Minimize Laboratory Errors
Many labs can benefit from automating everyday, error-prone tasks. Introducing automation into tasks like these can go a long way toward reducing lab errors:
- Repetitive pipetting of small liquid volumes
- Transporting samples between processing or analytic steps
- Device control, data collection, and information management
In each of these cases, the most significant benefits to error prevention in laboratories come from enhancing automation with scheduling and orchestration software support. Biosero’s Green Button Go software suite integrates all of a lab’s component processes, ensuring reliable communication between staff, processes, and machines.
Automated Liquid Handling to Reduce Pipetting Errors
Liquid handlers are one of the most common types of automation systems in labs, as they are helpful for various biological and chemical research tasks. These devices aliquot and transfer liquids for analysis at high throughput, reducing lab errors that commonly occur during hours of repetitive pipetting. Manual pipetting is prime-time for mistakes, due to both the inherent difficulty of precisely transferring small liquid volumes, as well as the stress and fatigue that happen with long, monotonous workloads.
Because liquid handlers are so useful, many labs use multiple, which may be specialized for particular use cases. Biosero’s Universal Liquid Handler Interface helps standardize usage for different machines, helping prevent user error. Learn how integrated automation is transforming liquid handling.
Flexible Robotics Bridge the Gaps
Robotic automation solutions are advancing rapidly, and mobile robots, in particular, are proving their scientific value. With advanced sensors and refined algorithms, mobile robots can work autonomously or in collaboration with humans across a wide range of lab conditions. These devices can fill the gaps between sample preparation, processing, and analysis steps that otherwise require error-prone human intervention.
Regardless of the specific use case, adding these robots to a workflow has the potential to cut down on the errors that happen between steps in the analytic process. A key ingredient to realizing these benefits is software integration between mobile robots and the devices they interact with. Biosero’s Green Button Go Scheduling software works with all kinds of devices, stationary or mobile, and makes sure that their interactions are as seamless and reliable as possible.
Software Solutions for Data Management, Analysis, and Monitoring
Software for automation is crucial to reducing lab errors by ensuring that information flows where it needs to between each piece of an increasingly complex lab environment.
It has been observed that clinical testing labs implementing partial automation may initially experience an increased error rate. Many of these errors were associated with communication problems between different components of the system.
Lab orchestration software provides the necessary support to gain the greatest benefits of lab automation for accuracy. While laboratory information management systems (LIMS) maintain records related to samples, lab orchestration software makes sure that workers, records, and instruments are fully integrated.
Using a workflow management framework, like Biosero’s Green Button Go, allows lab operators to access device sensors and data from a central location in real-time. This means that processes run on different devices can automatically share necessary information with one another, while instrument logs and data are automatically recorded into the LIMS.
Making device data centrally available also greatly enhances possibilities for insight into lab operations. When accidents or errors occur, these records are invaluable for fine-tuning processes to prevent recurrences. GBG makes it easy to feed instrument data into artificial intelligence & machine learning systems for process refinement using the Design-Make-Test-Analyze pipeline.
Case Study: Workflow Management in COVID-19 Diagnostics
Biosero’s solutions have a track record of reducing costly lab errors, even in cases where manual steps are still common and necessary. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, custom Green Button Go software used within diagnostic labs added checkpoints for lab workers as they processed patient samples. This design feature helps ensure that all steps in the PCR and sample identification processes are completed every time despite very challenging working conditions. GBG also tracks the workflow as it progresses, making sure that patient data remains faithfully linked to physical samples.
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The Role of Standardization in Reducing Lab Errors
Inconsistency breeds errors. When workers and machines follow consistent operational standards, all the component parts know what to expect, and the chance of something unexpected happening decreases. Lab automation is a great opportunity to standardize laboratory practices, both within a lab as well as across the laboratory industry space.
The more device designers and consumers adopt consistent design standards, the more our labs can accomplish. Biosero supports the adoption of community automation standards through membership in the Standardization in Lab Automation (SiLA) consortium.
Benefits of Lab Automation in Standardizing Procedures
Standardization during automation can yield benefits like the following:
- Reduce variation between different operators of manual processes
- Central control over workflows allows consistent updates across operations
- Monitoring of all lab processes to detect anomalies
- Processes are easily scalable
Establishing Consistent Lab Protocols
As labs scale up their operations, it becomes more challenging to keep all processes running the same way. This increases the possibility of variability or errors in results, especially for multi-site labs.
Lab orchestration and scheduling software, like Green Button Go, maintains centralized control over a system of disparate parts. GBG users can easily define a standard workflow that can be replicated across work sites. At the same time, this software integration allows continuous monitoring of processes, creating a central repository for device sensor logs and data. This valuable info makes it easy to detect and correct any deviations that creep into lab operations.
Using Workflow Automation to Enforce Safety and Quality Control
Minimizing laboratory mistakes creates both a safer workplace and enhances data quality. In addition to reducing errors by limiting the human-involved steps in lab work, workflow automation software shapes how workers perform manual processes to enforce following protocols. In an integrated lab, processes don’t progress until workers confirm that each step in a safety protocol has been completed and device sensor data supports conditions that are safe for lab work.
Reducing lab errors that cause accidents means that operations have fewer interruptions, and staff have higher morale. At the same time, data is less likely to be compromised due to sample contamination.
Start Reducing Lab Errors and Enhancing Productivity
Today’s lab depends on automation. When properly integrated using scheduling and orchestration software, automation has the potential for vast lab quality improvement by minimizing errors rates, yielding incredible benefits for productivity and reliability. Contact us to learn how Biosero’s automation software can work with your lab’s hardware to create a more harmonious and efficient research space.
