Pathology partners
By Carla Deakin, Marketing Manager, Abbott Diagnostics UK
March 2009
In December 2008, the ‘Report of the Second Phase of the Review of NHS Pathology Services in England’, chaired by Lord Carter of Coles, recommended consolidation of pathology services. Such ongoing rationalisation within hospital Trusts coupled with an upward trend in test numbers is seeing continued growth in both size and complexity of pathology tenders and service provision contracts. As a consequence, the choice of commercial pathology partner is more important than ever.
Today’s pathology landscape demands that a potential commercial partner must be able to meet all your modernisation needs - from understanding your process through to providing effective IT solutions, flexible products, high quality science and technology and comprehensive support. Abbott is proud of its record of delivery across all areas:
- Critical insight into your process: workflow analysis, change management and project implementation experience
- End-to-end IT: laboratory-wide functionality and automation
- Flexible solutions. Tailored to fit: analytical systems suited to the needs of any sized laboratory
- Thinking inside the box: innovative technology for improved efficiency
- On your team: services, support and training
Critical insight into your process
Workflow analysis approaches, such as PathWay from Abbott Diagnostics, will provide an independent view of your current practice and suggest a more efficient process, often eliminating unnecessary steps. One customer who benefited from a PathWay analysis commented, “This was a valuable experience which I would certainly recommend to any other lab looking to improve its workflow. The analysis was carried out in a friendly and supportive manner and the results confirmed suspicions we already had. Abbott observed areas that we took for granted and suggested new alternatives.”
Ideally, your commercial partner will be able to provide you with guidance on change management and, of course, have proven project implementation expertise.
End-to-end IT
The Abbott team is already seeing IT play a more upfront role, with an IT representative regularly sitting on the procurement group alongside finance, biochemistry and haematology.
Lord Carter’s review recommends that ‘IT connectivity should be put in place for NHS pathology services as a matter of priority’. The IT products and capabilities of your chosen partner are vital. Interfacing laboratory analysers to the LIMS is a challenge that should be tackled by the laboratory and commercial partner together. The bottom line is, if this interface doesn’t work, the laboratory stops.
A key tool within a laboratory working with Abbott is the Analyser Management System* (AMS). This advanced software solution links analytical and pre-analytical instrumentation. A customised set of ‘expert rules’ automates the validation of results and reflex testing. Results are stored centrally rather than on specific analysers. In addition, each result is stored together with its QC data and a comprehensive audit trail is provided for CPA purposes.
Flexible solutions. Tailored to fit
- Much has been written on the relative merits of standalone analysers, integrated analysers and full laboratory automation. Your commercial partner should be able to provide you with a solution to fit your laboratory. Abbott’s analytical systems are ideally suited to creating flexible, tailored solutions.
Thinking inside the box
It goes without saying that a high standard of science and technology is a must. Abbott’s ARCHITECT systems, for example, are full of innovative technologies that help improve lab efficiency and give confidence in results. Effective sample handling reduces manual input and releases samples quickly for transfer to other analysers or processes. Efficient transport of samples within the analyser itself, using multi-dimensional sampling, further increases analytical throughput.
ARCHITECT has a number of proprietary washing procedures. A user recently remarked, “ARCHITECT’s SmartWash technologies go on unnoticed in the background. These are automated processes so we can forget about them and remain confident in our results. Errors due to washing problems are extremely rare.”
On your team
System performance and reliability should be underpinned by innovation in service, support and training. Abbott’s approach is to bring support to the forefront alongside the system specification, assay evaluation and other critical tasks around the decision-making process.
Conclusion
For all those in the process of modernising their pathology services, the right choice of commercial partner can make all the difference. Regardless of the size of your service, Abbott Diagnostics is able to provide solutions towards improved quality, patient safety, and efficiency.
* provided in partnership with Omnilab srl