Island Setting Receives Improved Clinical Laboratory Diagnostics

A testing system is helping to improve efficiency in a hospital laboratory on the Isle of Guernsey.

The new system benefits both staff and patients. Previously, different platforms meant multiple blood draws--one serum tube for each of the analyzers, usually three to four per patient-to obtain results as quickly as possible. The new workflow makes the phlebotomist's work easier and means less discomfort for the patient.

Two cobas 6000 analyzers linked to modular preanalytics from Roche (Burgess Hill, UK) are helping the laboratory at Princess Elizabeth Hospital (St Martins, Guernsey BCD) increase efficiency and become more self-sufficient.

"Although [we are] a small isolated lab, we try to do as much as possible ourselves. We were dealing with an escalating number of tests and when the time came to upgrade four aging analyzers in our clinical chemistry department, consolidation seemed an obvious solution," explained Nigel Turner, section head of clinical chemistry at the hospital. With 183 different assays, Roche offers tests on an automated serum work area (SWA) platform, thus providing an ideal solution for the Guernsey laboratory.

As the lab runs a multidisciplinary on-call system, people from various fields including hematology or histology are also required to run the analyzers outside normal core hours. Now, it is just one blood tube, one analyzer.

Roche Diagnostics helps health professionals detect, monitor, and manage the patient's medical condition more effectively.


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