Herlev Hospital

Danish hospitals use flowbot® ONE for COVID-19 sample preparation

Following the COVID-19 outbreak a massive demand for collecting and preparing virus samples put pressure on the bioanalysts working in labs and already performing a lot of manual pipetting tasks.

The Capital Region of Denmark noticed the potential of the user-friendly pipetting robot flowbot® ONE and today several Danish hospital labs are using flowbot® ONE for sample preparation.

In the test lab at Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark, 2 flowbot® ONEs are running simultaneously preparing 400 COVID-19 samples per day.

Gorm Lisby, section chief at Hvidovre Hospital explains: “The robots help us in a situation where we are in need of more bioanalysts, and they help us taking care of our employees, so that they don’t get overburdened and get strain injuries.”

Martin Barfred Friis & Thomas Sundelin, Herlev Hospital

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Martin Barfred Friis, molecular biologist at Herlev Hospital in Denmark, expresses what a difference it makes to use the robots in the test procedures:

“The robot is pipetting a living virus, and it can pipette several samples simultaneously, which means we can avoid repetitive work and decrease the risk for work related injuries.

We are already working in a safe way, but it is brought to the next level when we are now also avoiding contact with the samples during the pipetting, thanks to the robot.

The risk of wrongfully pipetting a sample is also eliminated when automating, since the robot is using a pre-defined pipetting pattern, that it always follows.”

On photo: Signe and Daniel in front of their flowbot® ONE at Herlev Hospital

In very little time 12 robots were installed and the bioanalysts, molecular biologists and other staff members working in the labs quickly learned how to use flowbot® ONE.

As a result of the exceptionally short implementation time of the robots, the users from the hospital labs are already feeling confident at describing their experience from using the new machines.

Chief Physician at Herlev Hospital, Jens Otto Jarløv, is delighted about being able to automate in his laboratory:

“We are incredibly happy that Flow Robotics can deliver their robots so quickly. They are innovative, and they automate just what we need. We are very happy about it, and the cooperation has been really good.”

Gorm Lisby, Section Chief, Hvidovre Hospital, in interview on national Danish television.

The importance of saving time and avoiding injuries is also stressed by Martin Barfred Friis at Herlev Hospital:

“All in all, our stress levels are decreasing in many ways, we are less hurt from our work, and potential errors are minimized. Whilst the robot is pipetting, we can perform other tasks, and that means something in relation to the speed in full COVID-19 testing we are performing.”

However, not only will the flowbot® ONEs be used for COVID-19 sample preparation, but the robots will also be part of the workflow of other future tasks at Herlev Hospital. Martin Barfred Friis tells:

“In general, we are excited by the potential and flexibility our new robots are, and will be, bringing, also after corona-pandemic. Right now, it is pipetting samples and in the long run we will also find other areas of use, and we can easily re-allocate them to other tasks in our lab.”

We are already working in a safe way, but it is brought to the next level when we are now also avoiding contact with the samples during the pipetting, thanks to the robot.

Martin Barfred Friis – Molecular Biologist, Herlev Hospital

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