Lab Professionals Save Lives: Recognizing Lab Week

We’re celebrating this year’s Medical Laboratory Professionals Week. This week—and every week—lab professionals around the world deserve our recognition and appreciation.

The Value of Lab Professionals

Lab professionals work tirelessly for the patients and healthcare institutions they serve. Especially in the face of a global pandemic, the work of lab professionals is critical to diagnosing and preventing disease, as well as improving and maintaining public health and safety. Behind the scenes, lab professionals play a critical—and often lifesaving—role in the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. Just one key diagnosis can inform optimal treatment and save the life of a patient.

In a single year, over 14 billion laboratory tests are ordered in the United States alone.¹ The various tests that are performed in clinical laboratories—and, more importantly, the technologists who perform these tests, interpret and deliver results, and oversee lab operations—form the foundation of our healthcare system. In fact, up to 70% of medical decisions are influenced by laboratory results.¹

We are more grateful than ever for the critical, behind-the-scenes impact of lab professionals. On top of the business-as-usual billions of test orders, lab professionals have been facing an immense burden since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, which brought with it record-breaking demand for rapid and reliable laboratory testing, as well as increased safety and sanitization protocols.

Diagnostic stewardship efforts, like ensuring appropriate testing is available, support antimicrobial stewardship efforts to identify appropriate treatment options. Lab professionals give healthcare providers the actionable answers they need to improve patient management and save lives every day.

Lab technicians looking over a BioFire® System report.

Syndromic Testing in the Lab

BIOFIRE’s syndromic testing solutions are designed to integrate easily and effectively into clinical laboratory operations. Requiring just two minutes of hands-on time, the BIOFIRE^® FILMARRAY^® System facilitates around-the-clock molecular testing to streamline lab workflow and maximize productivity.

Syndromic testing from BIOFIRE is fast, accurate, and comprehensive. Choosing the right test, the first time may lead to fewer downstream testing and procedures and fewer send-out tests, helping lab professionals utilize their resources as effectively as possible. Rapid, reliable lab results can also help healthcare providers identify optimal treatments and reduce the use of unnecessary antibiotics.

Across six syndromic panels, the BIOFIRE System provides pathogen-specific results in about an hour for an overall menu of over 170 targets.

The BIOFIRE^® Respiratory 2.1 Panel efficiently and comprehensively identifies the typical respiratory season suspects, including influenza and SARS-CoV-2.

The BIOFIRE^®Blood Culture Identification 2 Panel provides results on a broad spectrum of bacteria, yeast, and resistance markers, supporting timely, optimal treatment decisions.

The BIOFIRE^® FILMARRAY^® Gastrointestinal (GI) Panel tests the most common pathogens associated with gastroenteritis—all from one patient sample, with results available in about one hour.

The BIOFIRE^® FILMARRAY^® Meningitis/Encephalitis (ME) Panel helps healthcare providers rapidly distinguish between bacterial and viral meningitis and optimize life-saving therapy.

The BIOFIRE^® FILMARRAY^® Pneumonia (PN) Panel delivers fast, accurate pathogen identification in about one hour, which may allow physicians to put patients on appropriate therapy quicker. Additionally, it provides semi-quantitative results on some bacteria to help distinguish between colonizing and infection-causing bacteria to help avoid unnecessary antibiotics.

The BIOFIRE^® Joint Infection (JI) Panel tests for a comprehensive grouping of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, yeast, and antimicrobial resistance genes most often associated with joint infections. The BIOFIRE JI Panel may help reduce time to effective therapy through rapid pathogen identification.

VITEK^® MS PRIME

Laboratories are faced with more pressures than ever before, with less and less resources. Due to the ever-increasing presence of antimicrobial resistance, it is imperative to have technology that provides accurate and timely identification of microorganisms. VITEK MS PRIME has a robust and evolving organism database cleared for bacteria and fungi, including mycobacteria, Nocardia and molds.

Learn more about how the VITEK MS PRIME a revolutionary microbial identification system—from the diagnostics provider you know and trust.

The VIDAS^® Solution

VIDAS instruments represent one of the broadest installed bases of benchtop immunoanalyzers in the world. The success of the brand is based on the quality of its reagents and the robustness and ease of use of its instruments, associating the single-test concept with ELFA technology. The comprehensive VIDAS menu offers more than 100 parameters to allow clinicians to make the right treatment decisions.

Innovation is part of the VIDAS brand DNA, with constant research into new parameters with high medical added value. The instruments are also evolving towards greater simplicity and automation for enhanced lab productivity.

Learn how VIDAS^® services can ensure your lab’s continued development.

bioMérieux CLARION^TM

CLARION is a secure, cloud-based clinical informatics software-as-a-service that connects and integrates disparate data into a single management application. CLARION gives you a holistic view of relevant lab and clinical data across departments, processes, and vendors and translates this data into actionable insights visualized on easy-to-use dashboards.

Find out how the utilization of our intuitive CLARION platform can provide the capability to track and improve metrics that can impact patient care and outcomes.

Join us in celebrating the unsung heroes of the medical world, with Medical Laboratory Professionals Week