At the 2016 annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), Roche, Basel, Switzerland, featured several next-generation diagnostic testing systems and a virtual reality experience that gave attendees an “under the hood” look at a lab of the future—a concept Roche calls the “Roche connected lab.”

The virtual reality theater enabled attendees to view samples moving through a virtual lab equipped with various configurations of Roche automation, chemistry and immunoassay platforms, and molecular diagnostics systems, as well as connections to third-party platforms. The actual Roche systems that are part of the connected lab concept were also  on display in the booth.

“There is increasing demand among integrated health networks for greater centralization of diagnostic testing to streamline workflows and put comprehensive patient information at the healthcare professional’s fingertips, quickly,” says Jack Phillips, president and CEO of Roche Diagnostics Corp. “The Roche connected lab concept brings together several different areas of testing in one place, so a single patient sample can be loaded once and integrated results are available faster and more reliably than ever before, helping to improve both testing efficiency and patient care.”

In addition to the virtual reality experience, Roche showcased a variety of recently introduced in vitro diagnostics solutions for chemistry, anatomic pathology, and molecular labs, and various point-of-care settings. Highlighted products included the Cobas Liat polymerase chain reaction system and its flu A/B plus respiratory syncytial virus test—for which Roche recently received FDA premarket notification (510(k)) clearance and waived status under the terms of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988. Also on display was the Ventana HE 600 system for automated hematoxylin and eosin tissue staining.

For more information, visit Roche.