In the modular vanguard
Southmead Hospital, part of the North Bristol NHS Trust, is the first site in the UK, and the second worldwide, to go live with Roche’s brand new cobas 8000 series high-throughput modular analyser. Located in the hospital’s new automated laboratory, the system allows test results to be achieved more quickly and efficiently than ever before, meaning that half a million people in north Bristol, south Gloucestershire and north Somerset will now benefit from faster laboratory results.
The cobas 8000 has replaced multiple analytical systems,” explains Mike Gillett, clinical biochemistry laboratory manager. “We can now perform the majority of our routine tests in a single passage through the analytical system, using a single patient sample. The ability to load just one rack on the cobas 8000, together with the system’s intelligent sample routing, will reduce our turnaround times significantly.”
The speed and broad assay menu offered by the cobas 8000 allows clinicians to obtain results for the majority of routine blood test requests more quickly, which means that patients are able to receive the most appropriate treatment at the earliest opportunity. The powerful cobas 8000 delivers this increased productivity for Southmead Hospital in a compact, modular system with a surprisingly small footprint.
“The cobas 8000 provides us with the opportunity to have a greater throughput to space ratio than before,” Mike adds. “It also allows us to future-proof the service that we provide. We anticipate our throughput to increase by at least a third as the new laboratory takes on more of the trust’s workload, and the cobas 8000 will allow us to continue to provide an efficient and timely service.”
The cobas 8000 at the North Bristol NHS Trust was supplied under one of the UK’s largest managed laboratory service agreements, which covers multiple disciplines (biochemistry, haematology, microbiology, cellular pathology and immunology) across five hospital sites in four NHS trusts that form the Avon Consortium (North Bristol, University Hospital Bristol, Royal United Hospital Bath and Weston Area Health).
“The Roche managed laboratory service has allowed the provision of modern, standardised equipment across the four trusts,” comments Paul Virgo, managed equipment services project manager for the Avon Consortium. “Combining the pathology business for four trusts in a single tender provides economically advantageous pricing structures to be agreed for the consortium, regardless of service size. We are delighted to be working in partnership with Roche – we are making savings and ensuring that we have the very latest equipment with which to operate a world-class pathology service.”
Full evaluation on the south coast
Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the first site in the world to evaluate the full serum work area (SWA) capabilities of the Roche cobas 8000 high-throughput clinical analyser. The laboratory at Poole Hospital has now taken delivery of a cobas 8000 SWA platform, incorporating two cobas c701 high-throughput clinical chemistry modules together and a cobas e602 immunochemistry module.
The trust’s clinical biochemistry department, which operates at two laboratory sites and provides biochemistry services for Poole Hospital and the nearby Royal Bournemouth Hospital, is now reaping the increased productivity benefits of its cobas 8000 platform, as over a quarter of a million people in Poole, east Dorset and Purbeck now have access to faster testing.
“Upgrading to cobas 8000 increases our capacity and provides faster throughput of samples,” says Darren Jose, pathology general manager. “Our current Roche platforms shaved four hours off our run times compared to our previous analysers. With cobas 8000 we are able to save even more time. cobas 8000 also future-proofs our service against further workload increases. Our plan is to have two cobas 8000 platforms at each laboratory. These powerful and space-efficient platforms will cope easily with our high-volume, high-throughput work – and we can also run specialist assays such as specific proteins and therapeutic drugs, user-defined assays and low-volume tests.”
With 183 different assays, Roche offers the largest menu of tests available on an automated SWA platform and, with 35 different configurations, cobas 8000 provides in-built flexibility to satisfy demands, both now and in the future. This truly modular platform is the perfect solution for the consolidation of workloads in laboratories running greater than 2.5 million tests a year. In addition to increasing productivity in the laboratories, cobas 8000 also fits with Poole’s vision for ‘one touch’ sample processing.
“Sample receipt was very labour-intensive and slow,” Darren explains. “The cobas 8000 allows us to exploit order-communications technology fully. Samples will come into the laboratory already barcode-labelled, with the test request already in the system. Then, all we do is load the sample on the Roche Modular Pre-analytics, and it will proceed automatically through the required analysers before being removed, stored or even disposed of without further manual intervention – literally ‘one touch’ processing, which will save much time and effort. We wanted increased throughput combined with time and labour savings – with the cobas 8000, Roche has delivered on all fronts.”
The cobas 8000 platform at Poole Hospital will also be linked to the cobas p501 storage retrieval module, further automating and speeding up the sample handling process.
About North Bristol NHS Trust
North Bristol NHS Trust is the largest teaching trust in the south-west of England and provides care from two large acute hospitals (Frenchay and Southmead) and from a variety of smaller locations including Cossham, Orchard View, Riverside Unit and other community-based sites. They provide all hospital-based medical and surgical services to the local population of north Bristol, south Gloucestershire and north Somerset, and maternity and paediatric services for a local population of approximately 500,000.
In addition, they provide specialist regional services including neurosciences, burns and plastic surgery, orthopaedics, pathology and renal services for people living in the former Avon area, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire and also throughout the south-west peninsula. An international reputation means that the trust receives referrals from all over the UK and overseas. In 2008/2009 it delivered over 5800 babies, cared for more than 82,000 people who attend the emergency departments, treated nearly 371,000 out-patients, cared for over 75,000 in-patients and 42,000 day-case patients.
About Poole Hospital NHS Trust
Poole Hospital was named the safest hospital in the UK in the 2009 CHKS Patient Safety Awards. Poole Hospital mainly serves the 272,000 people living in Poole, east Dorset and Purbeck. It is the major trauma centre for east Dorset and provides a broad range of district hospital care and a number of core services – ear, nose and throat, child health and maternity – for a wider catchment area that includes Bournemouth and Christchurch. The hospital also provides specialist services such as oral surgery and neurological care for the whole of Dorset and is the Cancer Centre for Dorset.
Last year it treated 46,815 in-patients, 17,597 day cases, 172,710 out-patients and 56,557 people attending the emergency department. At least 85% of in-patient admissions are unplanned emergency cases. As the major trauma centre for east Dorset, the hospital provides services for all medical, elderly, surgical and child health emergency admissions. Workload has increased in other areas as a result of the growth of the local population – a high percentage of elderly and very elderly people, a reduction in the number of elderly nursing care beds in the locality, more patients being referred by GPs, new treatments and rising patient expectations, and the development of specific services.
www.roche-diagnostics.co.uk