May 07 2021 Beckman Coulter, a clinical diagnostics leader, has announced the European launch of the DxA 5000 Fit, a workflow-automation solution designed to fit into medium-sized labs that run fewer than 5,000 tests a day. The clinical laboratory has gone through trial by fire in 2020, where total testing was 245% of baseline volumes, with ~55% being SARS-CoV-2 molecular tests. Despite vaccines, many industry players suggest SARS-CoV-2 testing volumes won’t be impacted in the near term, and the demand for COVID-19-related testing will continue through 2021 and potentially into 2022. This means that testing-volume pressure on labs is going to continue. “When we look at automation for our labs it's a balancing act between system throughput capacity, test menu and footprint of the system. At the Harrogate District Hospital site, we knew that a large automated system will be too large and excessive and a standalone system doesn't give us the streamlined workflow we want. What we needed was a compact automation system that reduced the number of steps, requiring minimum human intervention and generated a valid result at first pass so that our lab professionals are not moving samples around but performing the valuable scientific tasks they are trained for," said Afruj Ruf, Managing Director at Integrated Pathology Solutions LLP, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust.