NHS Grampian has standardised point of care (POC) blood gas analysis throughout its hospitals with the installation of 13 new cobas b 221 devices from Roche.
The analysers require minimal maintenance and perform consistently in a variety of POC settings. Plus, by ensuring a full audit trail of results, they enable the trust to meet clinical governance standards, while ensuring patient safety.
“We required a blood gas service that would not only provide rapid and accurate blood gas results, but that would also perform reliably in busy wards for 24 hours a day, while requiring minimal maintenance and intervention from a laboratory perspective,” said Dr Elaine Davidson, clinical scientist responsible for clinical biochemistry POC testing at NHS Grampian. “The solution has allowed NHS Grampian to standardise blood gas equipment across its sites. This aids stock control and deliveries, in addition to simplifying user training and maintenance by the laboratory team.”
She added that mandatory patient identification has helped to improve safety, telling BBH: “Results can be recalled on the cobas b 221 analysers quickly and easily, if required, and correctly identified with stored patient demographics. We are now working towards integration of results into the electronic patient record. This will further enhance patient safety by eliminating the need to tape or transcribe results into patient notes.”
The hospital has linked the installation to cobas bge link software. Dr Davidson said: “The status of each analyser can be viewed, and basic maintenance performed, from a central location. This allows the laboratory team to provide remote support 24 hours a day. Operator identification, authorisation and certification is also controlled using the software, which provides a full audit trail of results and allows us to address many aspects of clinical governance.”
The blood gas analysers are located in the laboratory, emergency department, intensive therapy unit, respiratory ward, high dependency units, acute medical assessment units, labour wards and neonatal units throughout NHS Grampian.
