- München Klinik and Siemens Healthineers enter into eight-year innovation partnership to equip future central lab in Neuperlach and existing emergency labs at other hospital locations
- Key component in upgrade: 29 Atellica Solution laboratory diagnostic systems from Siemens Healthineers
- Patients will benefit from high-quality medical lab services
Every year, München Klinik performs about seven million analyses as part of its patient care services. These range from simple blood panels to malaria diagnoses. These diagnostic procedures have previously been shared between all of München Klinik’s locations, but now, as part of the upgrade process, München Klinik is constructing a new, ultramodern central laboratory at its Neuperlach location. At the same time, however, it is adhering to its goal of being available on the spot at all times, which is why its emergency labs will remain in place at its other hospital locations. All labs will be equipped with the latest technology from Siemens Healthineers. That’s the basis for the long-term innovation partnership agreement for laboratory diagnosis being entered into by München Klinik and Siemens Healthineers. The objective of the partnership arrangement is to provide patients with high-quality medical lab services reflecting the state of the art at all of München Klinik’s locations, including the hospitals in Bogenhausen, Harlaching, Neuperlach, Schwabing and Thalkirchner Strasse. Networking these centers will create an ultramodern, efficient, large-scale lab in Munich. The overall plan will significantly increase the level of automation in the labs. That means the wealth of human expertise available can be utilized for the analyses, while the automated “lab line” takes care of the actual sampling. As a result, a lot more diagnoses can be processed more quickly, even during busy periods.
“The new, ultramodern central lab will provide an assurance of high-quality and even more efficient care in the future,” says Dr. Axel Fischer, Chairman of the Board of München Klinik. “The main winners from this partnership will be our patients, who will benefit from much faster and more accurate examinations. At the same time, our employees will spend less time on maintenance and repetitive manual tasks. All in all, they will also benefit in the future from having a state-of-the-art working environment.”
State-of-the-art lab diagnosis is an essential precondition for safe, high-quality patient care. Every year, München Klinik performs more than seven million analyses overall as part of its patient care services. The realignment process will see München Klinik invest about one billion Euros in total during the next few years in new premises and location upgrades. That makes it one of the largest future-oriented projects in Germany’s healthcare industry. Currently, major construction projects for München Klinik are running in parallel at the three locations of Schwabing, Bogenhausen, and Harlaching. And at Neuperlach, a completely new laboratory is being built that will provide the ideal conditions for state-of-the-art diagnostics for all locations. Since München Klinik deals with most emergency cases in the State capital, decentralized labs serving the emergency departments will remain in place in addition to the central lab. The new central lab in Neuperlach is scheduled to be completed by 2020. The project will also include fundamentally restructuring the fleet of lab devices in partnership with Siemens Healthineers.
“We won this tender against our main competitor, scoring points with the clinical performance, cost-efficiency, and potential efficiency gains offered by our new laboratory diagnostics platform Atellica Solution,” comments Bernd Ohnesorge, Head of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Region at Siemens Healthineers. “These are the main reasons for the major international customer interest in Atellica Solution, especially among large central laboratories working in conjunction with satellite labs. A study showed early adopters of Atellica Solution in Germany and in Europe as a whole focused on the advanced functions the system offered, from transporting samples to prioritizing emergency samples, calibration management, quality control, and consumables. We are looking forward to a very fruitful and long-term partnership with the München Klinik hospitals, and will be sure to feed our collective experiences into the refinement process for Atellica Solution.”
An important element in the agreement is the 29 Atellica Solution laboratory diagnostics systems, which Siemens Healthineers will supply for the future central lab at the Neuperlach hospital location and three emergency labs. The agreement also includes consulting services to improve workflows, such as efficient logistics for sample transportation and automation solutions in off-peak times to take the load off the employees. Plans are also in place for digital solutions to control lab management, in addition to a number of multisector digital solutions.
The Atellica Solution lab system has been on the market since 2017, and is highly scalable to ensure compatibility with long-term growth. Laboratories can use the platform to simplify test workflows and expand their capacities for testing patient samples on a modular basis. This means they can both accommodate growing demand and compensate for declining reimbursement rates.
To make patient results available faster, Atellica Solution uses bidirectional magnetic transport technology to transport samples ten times faster than a conventional conveyor belt. In combination with a new sample management standard providing independent control of each individual sample, emergency samples can also be prioritized with far less user input.
