Point of Care Testing Excellence with a Fully Connected Blood Gas Solution

Kingston Hospital NHS Trust ensures rapid and reliable results for blood gases and other critical care parameters using Roche cobas b 221 blood gas analysers. Easy to use and requiring minimal maintenance, these robust analysers are ideal for use by non-laboratory staff at the point of care, and they have the added advantage that they can be monitored remotely by using Roche POC IT solutions.

“Having the analysers at the point of care saves valuable time,“ explained Point of Care Testing (POCT) Manager, Christine Astbury. “Blood gas samples deteriorate rapidly and need to be analysed as quickly as possible. The cobas b 221 analysers allow us to do this reliably and with ease, providing a good quality result where and when it is needed.“

Kingston Hospital has seven cobas b 221 blood gas analysers located throughout the hospital (in the intensive therapy unit, accident and emergency, acute assessment unit, neonatal unit, maternity department, a medical respiratory ward and the laboratory). Connectivity with cobas® IT 1000 (together with cobas bge Link and cobas academy e-learning) provides Kingston with the complete POC IT solution allowing all analysers and operators to be managed efficiently from a single point of control

“cobas® bge Link can be used to check that all quality control (QC) tests have been performed satisfactorily, from a single screen in the laboratory“ added Christine. “It is also possible to troubleshoot remotely (using the screen sharing mode in cobas bge Link), as well as request calibrations, run QC samples, prime the system with reagents, and perform other functions. This is particularly helpful out-of -hours, when it is not possible for BMS staff to visit an analyser on the ward.

“One of the reasons we chose cobas® IT 1000 is because of the ability to connect Roche and non-Roche POCT equipment. In the near future we hope to link in further POCT equipment to cobas IT 1000 at Kingston. When we purchase any future POCT equipment one of the requirements will be that, where possible, they must be connected to cobas IT 1000. This means that one IT Solution can effectively manage POC in our hospital and provide the cost benefits. ”