bioMérieux Offers LabScore Grading for Microbiology Laboratory Professionals at the 2013 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology

bioMérieux today announced that it will be offering customers the opportunity to determine their LabScore while at the 2013 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). LabScore is a new measurement tool created by the microbiology lab efficiency experts at bioMérieux that will assess workflow optimization in a lab and provide comparison data with similar labs. This tool is designed to help lab leaders quickly identify their strengths and weaknesses and provides clear benchmarks for improvement. The LabScore is designed to measure optimization in three key areas: People, Process and Technology.

For decades, microbiology labs relied solely on manual techniques that often made their work prone to errors, particularly in acquiring a quality isolate. In more recent years, the industry has struggled to keep paced with a workforce that’s aging and retiring more quickly than it’s growing – and all in the face of an increasing number of patients, testing demands, budget constraints, and new challenges associated with Healthcare Reform. All too often, hospital and lab administrators are forced to tackle such challenges one-by-one based on priority or available resources. The Microbiology Pathway is bioMérieux’s complete, patient-centric approach to microbiology lab operations. The Pathway takes a holistic view of a lab’s People, Process and Technology to identify opportunities to improve productivity and traceability, minimize errors to improve quality, and support rapid clinical decisions by reducing turnaround times.

“Many labs are looking at making additions, such as automation, in order to keep pace with the growing demand for testing, but automation alone rarely does the trick,” said Ben Andrews, Executive Director Performance Solutions, bioMérieux Inc. “If a lab’s existing processes are inefficient, automating those processes are more likely to create expensive technology bottlenecks and become counterproductive. Three core areas: People, Process and Technology must be optimized to realize the true value of human resources and capital investment. Only this holistic approach will enable labs to streamline operations, optimize workflow and reinforce the medical value of diagnostics with one ultimate target: improving patient care.”

Only bioMérieux provides solutions for microbiologists conceived by microbiologists. LabScore, its newly designed survey resource, will help laboratories learn where they are in the optimization process by evaluating their efficiency in all three key areas. Representatives from bioMérieux will be on site at booth #701 to show lab professionals where their lab ranks with other labs of similar size and test volume, from all over the country.

MALDI-TOF-MS analyzes material from microbial cultures to provide organism identification by ionizing complex organisms and recording the “weight” of the molecules that make up these organisms. A spectrum is developed from this process and, by comparing it to a large database of spectra from a wide variety of human pathogens, pathogens can be detected within minutes as compared to the current methods that could take hours. Research teams from reputable institutions will discuss using MALDI-TOF-MS to detect Gram-positives, Gram-negative and Yeast during Scientific Poster Sessions.

bioMérieux will also host its annual scientific symposium, titled “50 Years of Microbiology, Pioneer Today & Tomorrow” (http://microsite.biomerieux-usa.com/asm2013/) on Monday, May 20th. The Scientific Symposium will be hosted and chaired by bioMérieux’s Chief Medical Officer, Mark Miller, MD. Dr. Miller will review bioMérieux’s 50 years of Pioneering and Innovation. Additionally, other key speakers include keynote speaker Alex Van Belkum, PhD, Corporate Vice President R&D Microbiology at bioMérieux. Dr. Van Belkum will discuss the threat of antimicrobial resistance and how next generation antimicrobial susceptibility testing is being designed to help solve this growing global problem and William Michael Dunne, PhD, bioMérieux Executive Director for R&D Microbiology, who will discuss Laboratory automation in clinical microbiology: How to digitalize an analog, tactile science.

For more information on the bioMérieux annual scientific symposium, visit (http://microsite.biomerieux-usa.com/asm2013/) or stop by booth # 701 at the show to register.

About bioMérieux

Pioneering Diagnostics

A world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics for over 45 years, bioMérieux is present in more than 150 countries through 41 subsidiaries and a large network of distributors. In 2012, revenues reached €1.57 billion with 87% of sales outside of France. bioMérieux provides diagnostic solutions (reagents, instruments, software) which determine the source of disease and contamination to improve patient health and ensure consumer safety. Its products are used for diagnosing infectious diseases and providing high medical value results for cancer screening and monitoring and cardiovascular emergencies. They are also used for detecting microorganisms in agri-food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.

bioMérieux is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris market (Symbol: BIM – ISIN: FR0010096479).

Additional information can be found at www.bioMerieux-usa.com.

Contacts:

Media Relations

bioMérieux
Allan Mohess
Tel: +1 919-479-3639
allan.mohess@bioMerieux.com

Baker & Yorke
Tim Baker
Tel: + 1 216-338-8086
tbaker@baker-yorke.com