The use of simulation to evaluate automated equipment for a clinical processing laboratory

A series of simulation models were created to evaluate several vendor proposals submitted for automation of the Central Processing Laboratory at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, The goals of automating Central Processing are to deliver a high quality product (medical specimen) to the appropriate testing laboratory at a lower cost, decrease turnaround time for test results, and reduce potential employee exposure to biohazards. In this paper we discuss the simulation models we developed to perform the evaluations.