In bacteriology, 80-90% of attempted cultures produce no significant growth. It is therefore important that these negative cultures are processed quickly and efficiently, allowing attention to remain focused on the cultures that do yield significant growth.
SEDRI-LIMS provides an optimised workflow for processing large batches of specimens that are likely to need immediate culturing, e.g. where diagnosis is time-sensitive or pre-screening is likely redundant. This workflow support consists of the following items, which are selected in the order they appear below:
- Today’s Specimens (filter): A filter preset to select specimens received on the day of processing that are in the Specimen Received state.
- Process Today’s Specimens: An action that is optimized for moving specimens quickly from the Specimen Received state to the Specimen Culturing state.
- Day 1 Bench Read (filter): A filter preset to select specimens in the Specimen Culturing state. Use this once the physical culturing process has been completed.
- Day 1 Bench Read: An action that is optimized for moving culture-positive specimens into the Pending ID/AST state and culture negative specimens into the Pending Approval (or Specimen Finalized) state.
- Pending ID/AST (filter): A filter preset to select specimens in the Pending ID/AST state (all of which must have positive cultures).
Use of this workflow is described in detail in the following sections, structured around its two key actions: Process Today’s Specimens and Day 1 Bench Read.