Are you wondering what types of equipment and tools you'll need to stock in your pathology lab? When you first start a laboratory business, you may find it overwhelming to consider everything from equipment to staffing to safety to clients. It can be easily overwhelming, but with the help of our lab consultants, you can get the help you need. We can provide you with customized laboratory solutions to get your business started the right way. Here are a few of the most popular types of equipment that are used in pathology labs.
Centrifuges are used in many lab settings to separate liquids, gases, or other fluids based on their density. Many people most commonly recognize centrifuges for their ability to separate plasma from the rest of blood. In lab settings, these devices are used for cell, organelle, protein, and virus purification for further testing.
This important piece of equipment is used to continuously stir liquids to keep them circulating as they are simultaneously heated. These two occurrences make the chemical reaction occur much quicker and more evenly, which can provide for better testing samples.
When most people think of pathology labs, they hark back to their middle school days, hunched over a microscope looking at cell samples on small slides. Laboratories have many slides, and they also use a slide warmer to keep them in optimal shape. Slide warmers keep slides at a warm, desired temperature that is safe for fixing, drying, or staining the samples.
A warm water bath, that the tissue water bath equipment creates, allows for tissues to relax and smooth out before they are placed onto slides for testing purposes. The warm water allows the paraffin to stick to the surface of the slide much better. The type of tissue that is being tested will determine the temperature of the water that is required in the tissue water bath equipment.
The paraffin trimmer removes any extra paraffin from the tissue sample, biopsy sample, or other biological contents. This equipment allows the safe and clean removal of the extra paraffin, which spares lab technicians from having to use the less effective paring knife to do the job. The paraffin dispenser is another piece of important equipment that melts and dispenses the paraffin throughout the tissue sample. This is done prior to sectioning the sample onto slides for testing. It is important to keep the dispenser in the lab to make paraffin much more accessible and readily available when it is needed.
These are just a few of the basic types of equipment that you'll need to start your pathology lab. When you are struggling to understand the basics of your pathlab buildout and inventory you'll need to start, you will want a lab consulting firm on your side. Contact the experts at Hankins Consulting to hear how we can help you with your customized laboratory solutions today.
