ABSTRACT
Interest in the field of rapid and automated methods in the microbiology laboratory has grown steadily over the past 20 years, although few of the methods currently available are recognized as standards. There are exceptions to this rule, and in the next few years the number of exceptions will grow. One of the limiting factors to their acceptance has been the ongoing requirement for third-party laboratory accreditation and the use of validated methods. Consequently it is often easier for a laboratory to include established standard methods rather than new and often unvalidated methods. Despite this there is a driving force in the industry to adopt new microbiological methods, the main drivers being increased method sensitivity, faster results, and the need to reduce labor costs in the laboratory. Impedance microbiology can address all these issues but has tended to focus on producing results more quickly than is achievable by conventional methodology and making a significant contribution in reducing labor costs through automation. It is interesting to note that even given the relatively widespread use of impedance techniques since the late 1970s, Kell and Davey (1990) concluded that the generalized impedance approach remains astonishingly underexploited.
