Of all the disciplines of laboratory medicine, microbiology has...

Of all the disciplines of laboratory medicine, microbiology has always been the slowest to adopt new technology (Think PCR and MALDI-TOF being the biggest change in the last 100 years!). There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that image analysis has only really come of age in the last decade, PCs are now powerful enough to run this software.
Accurately imaging the subtleties of bacterial growth on an agar plate and analysing the image to make an accurate estimate of type and amount of growth leaves microbiologists suspicious!
On average it take 5 years to train someone to accurately read agar plates, using not only the appearance of the growth on the plate but the smell and the way the 3D colonial morphology looks, are they rough, smooth, glistening, wrinkled, spreading, mixed or pure etc. etc. (Picking 1 suspicious colony out of thousands on a plate takes immense skill!) Is the agar their on selective (has antibiotics to kill unwanted bugs and let pathogens grow), differential (has indicators or chromogens that change colour for certain bugs). All of these things coalesce in seconds as you hold that plate in your hand. Pick the wrong colony and that's 24 hours wasted.

I am truly impressed with what LBT has done, it has huge potential and it will take time (and probably a few redundancies) to turn the humble micro lab around to accept the technology. In fact I actually see no reduction in staff when these technologies are introduced. Many papers have been written on the BD Kiestra system (another large imaging system) and how to use it properly, and run 24 hours you in fact need more staff not less!

I think for chromogenic plates (ones where the colonies change colour) this technology is a no brainer (Think MRSA, VRE screening). I also think use in the Pharma industry also has a lot of potential as No growth on their plates is what they mostly see and hence can be easily screened out.
I think adoption will be slow, but it will happen as microbiologist become more confident of the technology, it's a waiting game that’s for sure!