Current Trends in Instrumentation and Technology: Outlook for the Future

The level of sophistication in the clinical laboratory has been made possible with advances in instrumentation and technology, going hand in hand with great expectations for doing “more for less” in a cost-conscious healthcare environment. The chapter provides the reader with an overview of current trends in instrumentation and technology in the clinical laboratory (chemistry, hematology, coagulation, microbiology, blood bank, and molecular, point-of-care, and noninvasive testing). It aims to acquaint the reader with current trends in miniaturization and micro- and nanofluidic technology and their impact on microarray and chip technology in a lab-on-a-chip format. The chapter provides a perspective on how these developments and other new ultrasensitive technologies are and will be shaping the laboratory of the future. In addition to achieving previously unachieved levels of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, these technologies will enable real-time results at the bedside and in the clinic. However, some concerns remain such as the potential for clinical action on the basis of analytic results that have not been subject to review by experienced laboratorians or validated by appropriate quality control methods. Only time will tell what the role of pathologists and clinical scientists will be as a new generation of “blind” instruments is deployed in clinical environments where there is an assumption of correctness of all results generated by an instrument.