Managed Service Contract Simplifies Microbiology in Worcestershire

The Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is consolidating its clinical laboratory services at the Worcestershire Royal and Alexandra Hospitals, taking advantage of a managed service contract from bioMérieux to support its centralised microbiology services. Mary Macdonald, Trust Lead and Head Biomedical Scientist for Microbiology, explained the rationale for choosing the service: “In addition to offering us significant cost savings, the managed service contract will also provide us with an assurance of comprehensive support for the microbiology testing functions it covers for the next five years. As a single department providing clinical microbiology services on three sites, this helps us to optimise delivery of centralised services.”

The Trust already has a wide range of automated microbiology systems from bioMérieux – including VIDAS®, VITEK® 2 and BacT/Alert® platforms – and, as part of the contract, will further enhance its automation capabilities with a UF1000i urinary screening system and a PREVI™ Isola specimen and agar plate management system. To further improve its workflow, and in particular to allow web-based remote access to results, the department is also considering bioMérieux’s latest offering, Myla™. This intuitive middleware solution is ideally suited to laboratories serving multiple sites, helping to improve connectivity and information management. Mary concluded: “We are retaining a strong clinical and infection control presence at all of our hospitals, so in terms of access to results, Myla would be great.”