Source: Siemens Healthineers
News • Lab equipment
Atellica Solution gets 'thumbs up' from early adopters
Clinical laboratories are challenged to meet greater testing demands, improve efficiency, and deliver reliable, high-quality results, while facing an increasing shortage of skilled employees and growing budget constraints.
To address each of these challenges, Siemens Healthineers brought to market the Atellica Solution immunoassay and clinical chemistry analyzers for in vitro diagnostic testing. Early adopters of the system recently reported their respective workflow and performance studies, each of which validate the solution’s ambitious commitments to transform operational efficiency and enhance clinical performance.
Features such as automated quality control and calibration, a sophisticated vision system, and intelligent sample management and test scheduling improve workflows even in tightly-staffed lab environments. A unique bidirectional magnetic sample transport technology ties these features together and helps refocus the operator's attention elsewhere in the lab. Less hands-on time for routine tasks maximizes existing resources and reduces the need for additional operators as laboratory operations grow.
The time a technologist needs to keep a system working is very important, and it consumes many hours per day. Tasks such as maintenance, QC and calibration, and reagent loading require a lot of time
José Luis Bedini
Utilizing the onboard maintenance and quality control capabilities, Hospital Clinic Barcelona and LBM Bioesterel of France delivered their typical high-volume throughputs with 60 percent and 73 percent less hands-on time respectively, and staff productivity improvements of 13 percent and 21 percent respectively. Access Medical Labs in Florida, USA experienced similar results, reducing hands-on time from an average of one hour to less than 10 minutes per day. “The time a technologist needs to keep a system working is very important, and it consumes many hours per day. Tasks such as maintenance, QC and calibration, and reagent loading require a lot of time,” said Dr. José Luis Bedini, Head of the Core Lab Operative Area at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. “We are always facing challenges to design and develop new tests that we can offer to our patients and to our clinicians. The only way to do this is to relocate resources from the routine lab to the specialist lab, which we are expecting to achieve with the Atellica Solution.”
The ability to load STAT samples on the Atellica Solution alongside routine samples—without affecting turnaround time of either test—is a paradigm shift for laboratories that currently operate with dedicated analyzers or dedicated STAT labs adjacent to the emergency rooms. Such is the case at Hospital La Paz Laboratory. “With the Atellica Solution we have a solution that permits the true prioritization of urgent samples, even when one is processing and analyzing routine samples, and this will facilitate new forms of organization in labs. We could do away with the need to have independent equipment for STAT tests,” Dr. Antonio Buño Soto, Head of Laboratory Medicine Department at Hospital Universitario La Paz, one of the largest in Madrid, added.
Source: Siemens Healthineers
As laboratories continue to consolidate and utilize both new and existing instruments across their healthcare systems, laboratories must take care that patient results are precise, accurate, and concordant anywhere within the system. These three elements help avoid the need to retest samples.
The customers’ Atellica Solution studies were conducted using Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines to assess the concordance, precision, linearity, and detection capability compared to those reported in the assay’s Instructions for Use. Among the assays assessed for performance at LBM Bioesterel was the Atellica IM TSH3-Ultra Assay for thyroid function, versus the ADVIA Centaur TSH3-UL and Roche ELECSYS TSH assays. The TSH3 assay was selected because it is one of the most common test requests. Biotin interference also was studied.
The Atellica IM TSH3-Ultra Assay demonstrated a coefficient of variation at or below 6 percent—below those reported in the Instructions for Use—at three control levels. The analytical time-to-result, when compared to the predicate system, decreased by 22 percent. The assay had greater than 99 percent correlation to corresponding competing assays. Further, there was no interference of biotin at up to 500 ng/mL—whereas the competitor assay was significantly impacted by biotin at 500 ng/mL. “Assuring that our methods have no interferences is absolutely helpful for patient care because we can avoid drawing a second sample, which impacts the time it takes to have a definite or conclusive result in order to assure the correct patient care,” said Dr. Buño Soto.
The results from the early adopters will be presented during poster presentations at the 70th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Chicago, Ill. from July 31 to August 2.
Source: Siemens Healthineers
01.08.2018
