Abbott announced the introduction of Alinity, its harmonized family of next-generation systems across immunoassay, clinical chemistry, point of care, hematology, blood and plasma screening and molecular diagnostics. Each Alinity platform will include a number of features to help institutions, clinicians and laboratorians better navigate through a pressure-packed health care environment.

Diagnostic testing guides 70 per cent of health care decisions. Global testing volumes are rising due to an aging population, the growing management of chronic diseases and increased access to care. At the same time, health systems are facing pressures to perform testing as efficiently as possible with limited staff and space while also reducing costs. Many institutions and labs use multiple diagnostic platforms, often within a larger health care network. As they serve more patients and try to improve service levels with fewer qualified technicians, institutions are looking for new technologies that can help maximize testing efficiencies and help better manage resources.

Designed with universal, intuitive interfaces as well as common software and hardware, Abbott's Alinity systems will have the ability to work together, providing greater capacity and simplifying the user experience. Several of the platforms will be designed to run more tests in less space, generate test results faster and minimize human errors. By offering a comprehensive solution that addresses the challenges of using multiple diagnostics platforms, while continuing to provide quality results that positively impact patient care, Alinity could potentially change the industry's testing paradigm.

"Abbott's Alinity portfolio is unprecedented in the industry," said Brian Blaser, executive vice president, Diagnostics Products, Abbott. "With our unified family of testing instruments, we'll be able to offer more efficiency, flexibility and confidence to health systems and better help doctors and nurses get the results they need to improve decision-making and patient care."

Abbott expects Alinity launches to begin later this year and continue into 2017. The systems are supported by Abbott's AlinIQ, the first-of-its-kind, combined professional services and informatics solution that assists labs in achieving greater operational productivity with their existing resources. AlinIQ launched worldwide in April 2016.

To develop each next-generation platform, Abbott's research and development teams engaged with thousands of clinicians, scientists, lab technicians and health care executives. The goal was to better understand their experiences and learn what is needed to address the challenges they face, whether in the core laboratory, at the point of care or in molecular diagnostics.

"Abbott's Alinity systems are being built from the ground up based on customer insights, using the latest technologies suitable for testing today and in the future," said Dennis Gilbert, Ph.D., vice president, research and development, Diagnostics Products, Abbott. "Whether it's an easy-to-use software interface, running more tests faster or the ability to run any test at any time, our Alinity platforms are designed to include these features and more without any compromise in performance or quality."

The Alinity name is derived from the combination of three key attributes: alignment, innovation and unity. The Alinity suite of products is designed to align with customer goals, provide innovative solutions to address the challenges of today while anticipating those in the future, and work in unity. The systems could help institutions, their laboratorians and their health care providers achieve measurably better performance and help people get the right diagnosis at the right time.