Suppose for a moment you're a doctor. Or a nurse. Or any healthcare professional.

In your world, you're seeing more patients than ever and more of them are older. New diseases are emerging and mutating. You're under more pressure to keep costs down. And time is of the essence – your patient would really just like to know what's wrong. Now. You'd like to know, too.

Feeling the pressure?

Today, diagnostic testing influences up to 70 percent of healthcare decisions worldwide. People expect and sometimes need fast, accurate test results so their doctors can assign a proper diagnosis and get their patients on the fastest route to recovery.

Abbott's all over that idea. With about 1.5 billion people estimated to reach 65 or older by 2050, and chronic diseases projected to account for between half and three-fourths of the disease burden by 2030, Abbott’s diagnostics business will be innovating to help people live longer, healthier lives for many years to come.

Since 1972, Abbott has driven innovation across medical diagnostics, pioneering new technologies and solutions that transform the way patients and healthcare providers receive accurate and timely results for diseases such as cancers, infectious disease, cardiovascular and more. Today, it's an industry leader in the large $50 billion global diagnostics market.

About 4 billion tests are conducted each year using Abbott testing platforms; its platforms screen 60 percent of the world’s blood supply and the business holds No. 1 positions in point-of-care testing (U.S.) and blood screening (U.S. and globally). In all, Abbott’s diagnostics business achieved $4.8 billion in sales in 2016 and is known as a consistent driver of results for the company with mid-to-high single digit sales growth the past several years.

The secret lies in not just bringing a test to a customer – but solutions to their challenges. That means having the right menu of high quality tests, scalability for labs of all sizes, and the informatics tools that help labs operate more efficiently while elevating the role that diagnostics plays in helping patients.

Recently, Abbott began rolling out a family of diagnostic instruments designed to help simplify diagnostic testing while delivering results that drive better patient outcomes.

The name of the family, Alinity, is derived from a combination of "alignment," "innovation" and "unity." The harmonized family of next-generation diagnostic systems covers key areas of testing and positions Abbott to change the industry's testing paradigm and expedite patient care worldwide. It offers improved automation, throughput, space efficiency, speed of diagnosis and ease of use. These new platforms maximize the testing output within a smaller footprint – an important feature for labs that process tens of thousands of patient samples, but are often short on space.

All this, combined with the company’s innovative informatics tools?

You might say it helps take the pressure off.