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Biotech / Medical : ACMI - Accumed Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank Buck who wrote (1065)	1/11/1998 12:01:00 PM
From: Sigmund	Respond to of 1894

I think it was not more than a couple of years ago that there was a scandal about the number of tests being read by each cytotech, the number of hours they worked etc. Then there was what I think was called "sink tests". The test sample was simply poured down the sink and results reported. I don't recall if that was related to cytology or something else. The labs exploit the techs. Many techs are immigrants and not always legal. If legal they depend on retaining their jobs to retain their legal status. The consolidation in labs has on balance I think made their life more difficult professionally but probably better in terms of benefits etc. Automation is a mixed bag when it comes to the techs. On the one hand it threatens to displace them. On the other hand it makes the job more pleasant and better uses their skills. As in other areas there will be a migration of jobs from operator to support. Every machine needs to be maintained. Quality control becomes more important. Training becomes even more important. The target accuracy rate will increase so there may be more rereading of certain selected slides. Levels of compensation will increase. Cytotechs are already well paid I believe but it is compensation for the toughness of their job. With automation, technologists will be better paid based on the importance of their jobs, their skills and abilities, and the need by the laboratory to have continuity in employment in more differentiated jobs. The trends in information technology in general will apply to laboratory information technology as well. Back to Frank's point. Smaller labs will be at a disadvantage to large labs as the large labs become more capital intensive. One approach for the small labs is to automate the support functions for their techs and that is where I see ACMI coming in. There are always more than one way to improve a situation and the actual reading of the slide is only one small part of the process.