Time and motion study of familial bowel and breast cancer gene mutational analysis in Victoria, Australia

Results 47 surveys were collected, representing one-third of searches performed in the data collection period. It was estimated that each laboratory encountered 150 genetic tests each year that required information on an unclassified variant to be searched for and reported on. From this the activity of searching and reporting analysed was calculated at 20 weeks’ effort across the state of Victoria each year. Differences were observed in times reported (Table 1). This was attributable to the level of automation of the two processes: Conclusion The study found that if all laboratories could benefit from the automated process, the 20 weeks’ effort to search for and report on unclassified variants found by genetic testing for familial bowel and breast cancer could be reduced to 5 weeks. This study supports the view that the development of a common repository approach would have significant economies of scale over repositories being developed by laboratories for individual diseases, particularly as genetic testing becomes more common.