An air of calm
Xchange newsletter – February 2009
In 2006, the Pathology Directorate in what is now the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, decided to centralise much of its acute pathology testing in an effort to provide an effective and efficient diagnostic service. The resulting Automated Diagnostic Laboratory was opened at Charing Cross Hospital in May 2008. Xchange speaks to Anne Bradshaw, operations manager.
The new £3m laboratory was designed to allow for the analysis of more than 20,000 patient samples per day, including 15,000 immunochemistry tests and 7,000 blood counts. Whilst this is far in excess of current sample numbers, the project team was focussed on providing sufficient capacity for the predicted growth in demand as well as expansion of the present test repertoire.
“The solution chosen by the Trust was a managed service contract with Abbott as prime contractor,” explains Anne. “This included supplying an ACCELERATOR APS, eighteen ARCHITECT analysers plus other diagnostic testing facilities.”
Why?
Anne continues, “One of the key reasons for choosing Abbott’s solution was the high standard of equipment and their ability to provide such extensive automation. Also, the ARCHITECTs have a wide assay menu – more so than other suppliers – reducing the need for legacy kit in the laboratory.”
“Getting the right contract type was also important. We were keen to have a managed service contract and Abbott was able to accommodate our needs and was willing to talk to several suppliers and get them on board.”
Having the right solution
Process optimisation is the key to managing laboratory efficiency. At Charing Cross, turnaround times have improved, especially for urgent samples, such as those from A&E. Urgent samples are processed on a dedicated ARCHITECT ci8200 combined clinical chemistry and immunoassay analyser to ensure rapid results. Consequently, the lab has been able to redeploy two members of staff.
Anne remarks, “The ACCELERATOR handles samples just as we want it to. Our ever increasing workload of GP samples is loaded, processed, analysed and archived automatically. We simply wait for the results to appear.”
On your team
“As you can imagine, with an installation of this scale, it took some adjustments to get it up and running. Abbott’s engineers were great,” says Anne. “And on the day we went live, they were all there for support.”
“We found the communication within Abbott to be particularly good - between the sales team and the implementation team for example. As part of our contract, Abbott has provided an onsite facilities manager who has been fantastic and also a dedicated engineer who is at the Trust all the time so any issues are quickly resolved. We have also found the office team to be excellent, they manage the purchase of reagents very smoothly.”
Learning the ropes
As with all laboratory equipment, training staff to use the instruments is vital. “The training provided by Abbott has been excellent and they seem to recognise the benefits of people knowing what they are doing in order to help minimise the amount of downtime. It also helps that the automation is not hard to operate! We originally planned that our out-of-hours staff would use the standalone STAT analyser, but at the start of their shift they would load samples onto the ACCELERATOR and soon became so confident that it is also used out-of-hours.”
IT solution
“The Analyser Management System (AMS)* acts as our interface between the analysers and the hospital LIMS. It is a good application package. The fact that it is open so that other manufacturers’ instruments can be added is great and the ability to view results across sites is particularly important for QC. We are looking forward to introducing the Reagent Management System (RMS)** in the near future, to further improve stock control.”
Assay performance has generally been very good and the assay menu continues to expand further all the time. “We have had no problem with our NEQAS results.”
Anne sums up, “Overall, we are very pleased with the solution we chose. Everything is working well, the laboratory is very quiet and has an air of calm which is superb.”
* provided by Abbott Diagnostics in partnership with Omnilab srl
** supplied under licence from CoMed GmbH
About Charing Cross Hospital
Charing Cross is a general acute hospital that provides a full range of adult clinical specialties. It houses the serious injuries centre for west London, a result of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust's expertise in critical medical care.
The hospital is also a key site for the teaching of medical students from Imperial College London. The hospital includes a new day-surgery unit, the world-renowned Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and the West London Neuroscience Centre.