Optimizing lab operations with the power of AI

AI-powered solutions can help automate and standardize not only workflows but also complex diagnostics to meet patients’ needs. Together with super-fast cloud computing and robotics, they can also optimize laboratories, for example by automating sample processing. As the demand for testing keeps increasing labs are getting larger and more complex to operate. To keep up with this testing demand labs need to analyze and optimize their operations based on the data streams being generated.

While working on his master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Columbia University in New York, Rayal specialized in robotics. He was eager to see how intelligent robotics could be used to automate and improve healthcare devices and workflows. The Automation Research Group at Siemens Healthineers in Princeton, USA, finally provided him this opportunity.

The biggest benefits of AI are integrating health records, symptom profiles, demographic data, and other patient information to better recommend diagnoses and treatments. Rayal’s vision is clear: enabling laboratories to work more efficiently through AI-driven automation of highly complex diagnostics systems.

He enjoys one thing in particular: running large-scale simulations of labs on the Sherlock supercomputer. “These simulations generate billions of data points on which we train our intelligent cooperative agents,” he explains. These agents collaboratively make decisions about lab operations such as tube routing and workflow assignments, all to optimize the overall operation of the lab.

“Even a small improvement in operations could lead to thousands of patients getting their test results faster,” he says. “These could be crucial for critical or pediatric patients where every second matters.”