Leicester Upgrades Data Management Software

The Clinical Microbiology department at Leicester Royal Infirmary (LRI) handles upwards of 150 blood culture bottles a day and has recently upgraded their BacT/ALERT® system with bioMérieux’s OBSERVA data management software.

Dawn Williams, BMS2, said: “OBSERVA has a lot more search facilities than our previous software, which has proved extremely useful. For example, we currently send out a provisional report of no growth at 48 hours, and on the Neonatal Unit wondered if this could be reduced to 36 hours to free up bed time in the unit. We used OBSERVA’s search facility to investigate this to see if all true positives flagged within 36 hours.

“We have also used it to study contamination rates, and identify those areas at greatest risk. At the moment a significant number of our positive cultures are Coagulase-negative Staphylococci (CNS), mainly due to contamination, and by identifying the wards at risk, we will be able to carry out specific training to reduce the problem. This will significantly decrease the amount of unnecessary work performed by the laboratory, reducing costs in terms of materials and staff time.”

Dawn concluded: “OBSERVA is very user-friendly, producing comprehensive, reliable data and fast results. It can run searches based on consultant, age, or any other patient demographic in our host computer system, I’ve found it an excellent system to use.”