Laboratory Automation with Mobile Robots
Edward Bush · JALA Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation · 1998
A mobile robot was installed in the Wellmont-Bristol Regional Medical Center Laboratory (Bristol TN) for lab wide specimen delivery in March of 1997, following Lab Automation 97 in San Diego, California.Significant staff reductions and other reorganization efforts in prior years 0-3) made daily survival difficult for the clinical support staff as well as technical employees.The Robocart offered an immediate and inexpensive platform to deliver specimens to work centers without requiring additional man-hours.This article will describe the eighteen month evolutionary process the WBRMC laboratory experienced using a mobile robot in an effort to automate our laboratory in a slow, progressive, and inexpensive fashion.