Salisbury introduces pioneering system

The Kiestra system works by incubating the plate and photographing it at different stages. Staff can bring up all the images that relate to a particular specimen on a high-definition widescreen display unit using the sample’s unique barcode. The biomedical scientist can then focus on single or multiple images, identifying colonies of bacteria such as MRSA for further work.

The system also makes it easier to identify and reject negative images; thus, more time can be spent on the detailed analysis of positive specimens, and negative results can be returned more quickly to the GP or hospital clinical team.