The second wave of the pandemic increased the daily caseload in India three times than that we observed last year. This increased the need and number of tests per day, adding overheads and challenges for labs from sample collection to report delivery. On the other hand, daily reporting to ICMR is very crucial for every testing centre, big or small. Although with limited resources and manpower handling high capacities is becoming a rising challenge for diagnostic centres.
Lab automation and mainly report automation to ICMR is a smart way to account for the high-level challenges that COVID-19 testing centres are facing. The article illustrates how automation helps in resolving the current challenges that labs are facing due to the surging workload at COVID-19 testing.
COVID-19 Reporting Solution – How automation helps?
To enable faster reporting of the COVID-19 RT-PCR test and COVID-19 Antigen test to the ICMR, you can use the ICMR form auto-fill extension. The plugin works with any LIMS to upload your daily reports automatically. Deployable on the same day, it is hassle-free to manage the COVID reporting task without overheads.
Drop in a request in the comments to register
Advantages of using ICMR form auto-fill extension
Here’s what more than hundreds of centres like Metropolis, Genstrings Diagnostics (Delhi Airport, Malviya Nagar), iGenetic Diagnostics, Ayugen (Pune Airport) and many others have to say about the advantages of this plugin.
- Takes just seconds to upload each result
- Save cost, man-hours and errors
- You can track the status of your uploads in real-time
- Extremely user-friendly and seamless process
- Linked with CrelioHealth LIMS to capture all ICMR ID & required fields
What are the challenges it resolves?
Reporting COVID-19 test results to ICMR includes labs spending 2-5 minutes to fill the ICMR form per report. Therefore to submit around 100-1000s reports per day takes them hours of workload. This is followed by a series of other challenges as well that include –
- Increasing workload with low manpower and resources
- More manual efforts required only at reporting rather labs must spend more efforts at aiding patients
- High chances of errors due to manual entries
- Higher turnaround is delaying report delivery to patients
Although, if we fail to submit reports to ICMR on the same day, labs are at risk of getting sealed. Not to mention, the impact of not overcoming few challenges might affect a lab’s reputation in the market. Some of the reasons that contribute to it are –
- Patients who are willing to travel, especially due to an emergency situation, have to cancel only because labs are unable to provide them reports on time.
- Delayed TAT results in delayed service delivery
- Low staff productivity due to high frustration and fatigue
- The quality and accuracy of your lab services are affected
Failing to solve these ongoing issues, you can lose your loyal customers as well as your B2B clients.
Automate your lab in 15 mins for COVID-19 testing. Know how.
