These plates contain multiple wells in which reactions, cell cultures, enzymatic assays, or other scientific tests are performed and it is equipped with several detection modes to measure different types of signals generated in the wells of the plate.

Common modes of detection include

• Absorbance: measures the amount of light absorbed by a sample over a specific wavelength range. This mode is used for assays in which the amount of a substance correlates with light absorption, such as cell viability assays or protein quantification.
• Fluorescence: Measures the emission of fluorescent light generated by a sample after being excited with light of a specific wavelength. It is used to detect fluorophore-labeled molecules, such as DNA probes, labelled antibodies, and other fluorescent molecules.
• Luminescence: Measures the emission of light generated by chemical reactions that produce light, such as luciferin-luciferase reactions. This mode is used for luciferase assays, such as enzyme activity assays or protein-protein interaction assays.
• Polarization: Measures the polarization of light emitted by a fluorescent sample labeled with polarization-dependent fluorophores. It is used to study the interaction between molecules or molecular structures.
• Surface plasmon resonance (SPR): Measures changes in the index refraction of a sample that occurs when molecules bind to a gold or silver surface. This mode is used to study real-time biomolecular interactions, such as antigen-antibody interactions or protein-ligand interactions.

It is important to note that there are multimode plate readers to which other technologies can be added, such as AlphaScreen detection, immunoblotting, or image acquisition. These can be used in the field of scientific research to obtain information on the most important biochemical processes occurring in the organism, among which the following stand out:

• Calcium assays
• Cell viability
• Cytotoxicity
• Quantification of proteins and nucleic acid.
• Microplasma monitoring
• Indicator gene assays
• Enzyme kinetics
• Microbial proliferation

The multi-purpose microplate readers have features and functions that allow access to customized protocols, for more accurate results with a single touch, by integrating a large touch screen, in addition to the near-field communication function, functions that facilitate the use of the working methods.

What are the main features of the multi-purpose microplate readers?

The latest generation plate readers are equipped with features that guarantee optimal results by offering ease of use.

Among these integrated functions are the following:

• An ultra-cooled photomultiplier tube detector to reduce background noise.
• QuickSync function, for sending test data to any computer on the same network
• Flexibility to set up experiments using filters, monochromators, or a combination of both on the reader.

The multiple detection modes and the possibility of on-site upgradeability, gives BMG Labtech multimode plate reader, the flexibility to expand your research capacity at any time.

Customisation and Upgradeability of Multimode Plate Readers

This multimode plate reader also integrates upgradeable modules including immunoblotting, cell imaging, and fast injector kinetics. BMG integrates into its multi-mode microplate reader a combination of simplicity with top-of-the-line performance.

Designed for researchers with very diverse needs, its most relevant feature is that it saves time and reduces errors in laboratory assays. It also allows automatic dynamic range selection, which adjusts the optimal reading range according to signal intensities.

The reader has built-in safety controls, which alert the researcher to potential errors in the assay before they occur. As a result, accurate information is obtained from the experiment data and research progresses more quickly.

Microplate readers play an important role in the field of pharmaceutical, food, biomedical, biotechnology, and academic research. They can read multiple modes of detection of chemical or biological reactions to provide the researcher with the highest accuracy in performing any research assay.

BMG offers multi-mode readers that integrate the best performance features for successful research and reliable data. The multimode plate reader is a crucial component for all laboratories, enabling them to identify the ideal compound to advance the discovery, development, and manufacture of a critical component of a research assay.

Multimode plate readers ensure high performance, versatility, and reliability for today’s laboratory needs.

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It is impossible to turn on the TV news or to click a headline on a newspaper website without hearing about the immense pressure that the NHS is facing.

The health and care system has come out of the Covid-19 pandemic with a huge backlog of elective care that has pushed waiting lists to 6.5 million and rising. At the same time, it is facing capacity constraints that are showing up as ambulance queues and concern about access to primary care.

Pathology services are critical to tackling these challenges. I’m not sure this is widely understood; but NHS laboratories conduct 1.2 billion tests a year, and those tests are critical to diagnosis and treatment, to monitoring the progression of disease, and to ensuring the safety of blood transfusion.

If the NHS is to get on top of the challenges that it is facing, it needs its pathology services to be running as efficiently and effectively as possible, and it needs to be optimising the demand that it is putting on them.

Running and reporting tests the right way

Since the publication of Lord Carter’s review of pathology services in 2016, NHS England has been encouraging NHS laboratories to form networks on a hub and spoke model.

The aim is to improve efficiency and quality by standardising equipment and procedures, and to make better use of scarce resources by conducting more specialised tests in a smaller number of centres, while making it easier to share results across the network.

Twenty-nine networks are being developed and CliniSys is live or deploying the WinPath Enterprise LIMS to nineteen of them and what we hear, time and time again, is that implementation acts as a catalyst for standardisation, transformation and process optimisation.

Clinicians from different laboratories across a network come together to decide how they want to work in the future, and they execute those decisions through the LIMS.

NHS England is also supporting a Getting It Right First Time programme. Again, technology is essential, because it is the LIMS that provides the data required to identify unwarranted variation in the way that tests are being conducted and reported and to check that any intervention has been successful.

Making sure clinicians order the right tests

Technology also underpins demand optimisation. Modern order communications and results reporting systems don’t just enable hospital clinicians and GPs to order tests for their patients.

Increasingly, they slot into joined-up care pathways and integrate with electronic patient records and shared care record initiatives, so a wider range of medical professionals can see what tests have been ordered for a patient and what the results were.

In itself, that can reduce expensive and sometimes painful repeat testing and improve patient care. When clinicians have access to a patient’s testing history, they are in a much better position to decide whether another test is needed, or a new result is cause for alarm.

However, order comms systems can go further, by adding AI and decision support tools that can help clinicians to pick the right test, at the right time, every time.

As an example, CliniSys has developed a tool for the Integrated Clinical Environment, or ICE Order Communication System, that will suggest a set of tests based on the primary indicator of a patient’s problem, so requesters no longer need to pick – and sometimes miss – tests one by one.

Integrating digital pathology with pathology  

While these developments are important, pathology is about more than networks, GIRFT and demand optimisation. It’s facing some big changes in the near to long-term.

One of those changes is the arrival of digital pathology, in which the traditional slide, that is viewed on a bench through a double-headed microscope, is turned into a digital image, that can be viewed on a computer from almost anywhere.

Until now, digital pathology has developed separately from LIMS technology and order comms systems; and that needs to change. We need to integrate the picture archiving and communications systems that manage digital pathology images with our core pathology systems and other sources of patient data.

We also need to give pathologists access to these consolidated sources of information. CliniSys is addressing this challenge by introducing the VUE Diagnostic Console to the UK, so clinicians can organise multiple data feeds into highly configurable widgets that make their working lives easier and more efficient.

Ushering in the genomic revolution

Another big change is the arrival of genomic medicine. It cost £3.5 billion to sequence the human genome back in 2000, but today the NHS is creating a Genomics Medicine Service around new genomic medicine centres and genomic laboratory hubs.

Genomic testing isn’t quite routine – yet – but it’s an increasingly important part of medical practice, particularly for those clinicians working with families with rare, inherited conditions, and in cancer services. Yet, genomic testing comes with its own challenges.

Genomic labs must be able to work with small samples of material, to share information with each other, and to report complex results back to clinicians in a way that can be used to effectively inform both patients and their families about treatment options.

Being able to do all this effectively requires a new kind of technology – the genomic LIMS; and CliniSys has responded by introducing our GLIMS Genomics solution to the UK.

Hungry for innovation  

Pathology is unusual in its close relationship with technology. As pathology develops, its core technology, LIMS and order comms systems, develop with it – and vice versa. This is a huge strength for the NHS.

As health and care services turn to pathology to help them address those waiting list and capacity challenges, they can be confident that laboratories have a 30-year history of digitisation and innovation to build on.

It’s that history that is enabling pathology networks to deploy modern LIMS technology that can help them to standardise workflows and reduce variation. It’s that history that will allow AI and decision support to help requesters to optimise the demand that is being put on them.

And as these developments pick up speed and scale, I think we’ll see a real transformation in laboratory services. Work that can be automated will be automated, while work that is urgent or specialised will be sent to where it can be handled most effectively – which might be at another network or in a completely different country.

That will enable some of the industrialisation that we have seen in other sectors and have a positive impact on pathology’s workforce challenges. It will be easier for people to stay in the profession, by working remotely, at times that suit them, and it will enable medicine to make the best use of scarce resources, wherever they are located.

At the same time, clinicians will have more support to order the right tests for their patients, and to view the results alongside other data, including genomic testing as it comes on stream, ushering in the era of personalised medicine.

For all the challenges that Covid-19 has left behind, it is an exciting future; and it’s one that I know our customers want to deliver. They want service transformation, they want technology now, and they want everything we can give them.

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1. How could becoming more digitally driven help NHS trusts gain clinical advantage?

Becoming more digitally driven could unlock a range of clinical benefits for trusts. For example, we saw during the pandemic how digital tools enabled NHS trusts to deliver care in new ways, particularly for patients who did not require face-to-face consultations and could receive care virtually. In these cases, technology gave clinicians the tools to remotely interact with their patients, allowing them to see more patients per hour and, simultaneously, boost the accessibility of care for those unable to attend in person.

A digital first approach could also help trusts streamline administrative processes and eliminate inefficiencies. Simplifying data entry demands and automating specific tasks frees up staff time to focus on other tasks requiring more thoughtful input.

And more broadly, boosting the availability of relevant patient data could enhance these digital tools even further, allowing for more effective information sharing throughout the NHS and optimising patient outcomes and quality of care. Some examples include accelerated diagnosis, improved workforce planning, and better research of new treatments.

2. During the pandemic, many of the UK’s pathology departments were understaffed as they addressed Covid-related demand. What challenges does this create, and how could technology support?

Pathology departments process millions of tests annually, so spikes in demand can create an overwhelming backlog of tests waiting to be processed. During the pandemic, this was compounded with staffing challenges, leaving many pathology departments stretched very thin, with patients waiting much longer than expected for their lab results.

However, these challenges have encouraged many trusts to turn to technology for support. For example, Laboratory information management systems (LIMS) provide pathology teams with a digital overview of a range of lab processes, reviewing data associated with lab samples, workflows, and experiments. With this added visibility into demand, costs, workflow, equipment usage, and quality measures, teams can quickly identify where backlogs are accumulating and adjust staffing accordingly. These solutions play an important role in encouraging trusts to digitally transform in ways that will better organise their workforce and bolster staff resilience when addressing fluctuations in demand.

3. How has Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust sought to embed more technology into its daily operations?

We’ve sought to embed more technology into our daily operations by looking beyond traditional laboratory information management systems (LIMS), which we previously used, towards a more holistic and resilient solution. While LIMS are effective, they can sometimes fall short in supporting efforts to review operational performance and plan more effectively. Nothing has underscored the need for improved clinical efficiency and workforce planning more than the pandemic.

We worked with InterSystems to deploy its TrakCare® Lab Enterprise to address these concerns. This platform has supported the trust in streamlining clinical pathology pathways that process up to 9 million tests a year and is helping us achieve clinical advantage by providing real-time visibility and traceability of patient tests. For example, we have been able to use InterSystems data to create dashboards which gives us real time information on our laboratory throughputs, helping us swiftly and accurately flex staff accordingly.

4. What are the main benefits you have seen?

The platform has helped drive efficiencies by giving teams more visibility into the pathology process. It makes the laboratory an information-driven and connected business.

This is only the beginning of our digital pathology journey. We look forward to seeing what further improvements can be realised across the department and our hospitals, integrating and working with our existing systems.

Digitising the pathology process has transformed how we operate at Gloucester, and we’re grateful for the hard work of our entire team and our colleagues at InterSystems. We’re now better able to meet spikes and change with agility and flexibility.

5. What do you think needs to happen to stimulate further digital transformation within the NHS?

Upskilling NHS staff to utilise new and emerging forms of healthcare technology is vital for further digital transformation within the NHS. It would be fantastic to see further trusts commit to using their data more effectively, to drive improvement and efficiency. Having a system that makes data accessible is key to this. We have already seen incredible benefits from adopting EPRs in our lab. However, there is still so much training to ensure that our people are well equipped and set up for success in providing digital care in different settings throughout the trust.

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The NPIC, opens opportunities for NHS trusts throughout the country to digitise pathology and improve patient diagnoses, following new funding and expanding the usage of Sectra’s digital pathology solution and VNA.

NHS laboratories in the co-operative are now becoming amongst the most technologically advanced and interconnected anywhere in the world. Organisations involved are ending their reliance on microscopes by sharing digital images of patients’ tissue. In turn, they will be able to send images to specialists more easily and embrace artificial intelligence to enhance how illnesses are diagnosed and managed.

Now, supported by a second wave of funding from UK Research and Innovation, a five-year agreement with the collaborative’s existing medical imaging technology partner Sectra, signed in October 2021, will see NPIC expand its reach to more trusts.

Initially this will involve providing support to more hospitals in the North of England, but the agreement will also allow NPIC to scale its approach and the Sectra technology to other hospitals across the country, as many more consider how to begin digital pathology initiatives and take advantage of emerging government funding.

In addition, it will allow NPIC to create two new specialist digital pathology networks in paediatrics and sarcoma tissue cancers, enabling national referral networks to provide the best diagnoses for these rare cancers.

Professor Darren Treanor, NPIC’s director, and a practising pathologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Digital pathology is now a national priority. Many NHS hospitals want to take advantage of this powerful technology to deliver a better service for patients. With NPIC, we hope to provide a proven model, underpinned with advanced technology from Sectra, that will help many more hospitals quickly realise their ambitions and benefit from the groundwork we have already done.”

Basharat Hussain, deployment director at NPIC, added: “Our work may have begun with a regional focus, but we are moving to address some significant clinical priorities nationally in areas like paediatrics and sarcoma cancer, where pathology specialists are especially scarce. We have now identified a significantly bigger application for our programme. We have shown how digital pathology can work and we can help the rest of the NHS replicate and scale using our learnings, in order to get pathology digitised to support better patient care.”

The agreement follows a separate November announcement from the UK government that commits £248 million over the next year to help modernise NHS diagnostics using the latest technology.

Jane Rendall, managing director for Sectra UK and Ireland, said: “We have been working with hospitals and regions throughout the UK for years to embrace digital approaches to diagnostics in a way that improves the working lives of staff, and that enables sustainable new ways to deliver services and cope with rising demand. NHS organisations are now embarking on this journey at pace, and have an opportunity to learn from pioneers, such as those in the North of England, who have been committed to making this work, and who are now ready to scale their success.”

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