Staff in the microbiology laboratory at the Royal Oldham Hospital have chosen bioMérieux's BacT/ALERT microbial detection system for processing blood cultures. Technical manager Sheila Norris explained: “One of the primary drivers for change was that our previous system used glass bottles. After we centralised our service, we had several incidents involving breakage of glass bottles during transport between the wards and the laboratory. The BacT/ALERT system uses plastic bottles, which means that this is no longer a problem.
"Another advantage of the BacT/ALERT is that we no longer need to incubate bottles prior to analysis; thus, false-negative results caused by incorrect storage are less likely, and we don't need to maintain incubators on all sites.”
Sheila continued: “Although our new laboratory seemed quite large initially, we soon found ourselves short of space. The BacT/ALERT is less than half the size of our previous system, and its modular design means that we can easily add additional units if sample numbers rise. bioMérieux made sure that the transition to the BacT/ALERT system was seamless and, within a week or two, we had moved completely to the new system. The instrument is easy to use, the software intuitive, and we received excellent training."
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