Robotics, automation, and the new role of process control.

The natural progression of automation in the clinical laboratory next will lead to robotic devices to perform many of the manual tasks still remaining. To date, most efforts of laboratory automation have been directed at the analytic phase. New targets for automation will be at the preanalytic and postanalytic phases where many of the bottlenecks in specimen flow now occur in highly repetitive manual tasks. Laboratory professionals will have a unique opportunity to incorporate new concepts of robotics in their facilities to improve error rates and to use massive laboratory databases to improve medical and public health services.