Company insight In case of emergency
Located in Târgu Mures, the largest city in Transylvania in Romania, the County Emergency Clinical Hospital (SCJU Târgu Mures) is the largest public health facility in the region, serving more than 134 ,000 inhabitants. Abbott creates breakthrough products – in diagnostics, medical devices, nutrition and branded generic pharmaceuticals – to help people lead healthier lives.
lthough it serves the emergency services of all clinics, the Emergency Room Laboratory (ER Lab) is unlike other ER laboratories. In addition to Mobile Emergency Service for Resuscitation and Extrication patients (SMURD), Intensive Care Unit, Neonatology, Hematology-oncology and pre-operative patients are exclusively tested and monitored by the ER Lab, due to the quick turnaround time (TAT). From 2019 through January 2021, the ER Lab’s testing volume grew 37%, driven primarily by increased patient visits in SMURD. This growth required the ER Lab to accommodate higher testing volumes using existing lab and storage space, budget and personnel, all with the expectation of additional future growth.
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TAT comparison, decrease of average TAT to 15 minutes and variation during shift changes.
Hidden challenges
The continuous quest to achieve the hematology TAT goal drove the ER Lab’s decision to adopt two different solutions for hematology testing that provided the lab with additional capacity and TAT improvement. But the expanding workload and increased complexity of operating two different technologies negated any actual gains achieved. The operational challenges included: ■ different result flagging promoted additional reruns that increased operating expense and reduced TAT improvements
■ laboratory and storage space limitations to accommodate additional instrument with different reagents
■ training and competency requirements doubled because all laboratory technicians had to be trained on both instruments.
Faced with these challenges, the management of the ER Lab examined workflow and technology upgrades in order to future-proof their laboratory services,
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thereby improving operational productivity while enabling flexibility for growth. In August 2020, the ER Lab installed the Abbott Alinity hq hematology analyser for a short-term evaluation. For three months, the laboratory compared the overall performance with the Sysmex XT-4000i instrument, including: ■ turnaround time ■ throughput ■ maintenance and reagent management ■ storage space requirements ■ staff satisfaction.
improved CBC throughput by 19%. Increased analyser uptime: Alinity hq enabled scheduled automated maintenance procedures. This hands-off maintenance approach easily overcame any other unscheduled downtime, calculated savings of 62 hours/year. Moreover, duplicate CBC reagents offered uninterrupted sample processing and flexible operator choice for convenient on the fly reagent loading. Reagent storage optimisation: Having two different hematology solutions increased the quantity of reagents (12), including larger-sized packages (20 L diluent), and created challenges in purchasing and storing. Consolidating the quantity and sizes of reagents ordered reduced storage space by 50%.
The ER Lab at SCJU Târgu Mures is a growing laboratory with an unusually heavy CBC volume. Faced with operational challenges they decided to study their workflows, identify bottlenecks and look for the solution that would best address their current needs and would future-proof their laboratory services. After the successful evaluation,
“Faced with these challenges, the management of the ER Lab examined workfl ow and technology upgrades in order to future-proof their laboratory services, thereby improving operational productivity.”
Evaluation findings Impact on turnaround time: TAT studies for automated CBC results revealed a marked improvement when compared with their existing instrument, during shift changes TAT improved by up to 47%. Besides reducing variation, the average TAT reached the goal of 15 minutes. Operational productivity: By implementing Alinity hq, the ER Lab
SCJU Târgu Mures agreed to integrate Alinity hq hematology analyser. With the implementation of this solution, the ER Lab was able to meet the team’s expressed goals and more, optimising their hematology workflow and increasing their level of personnel satisfaction. ●
www.corelaboratory.abbott 13
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