Vellore :

The Christian Medical College Hospital here has emerged as the first hospital in the country to have established a fully-automated clinical biochemistry laboratory that can handle around 1000 samples an hour effortlessly.

While the hospital had introduced automatic sample analysers sometime back, with the inauguration of a fully automated pre-analyser on Friday, the diagnosis of samples has now become a lot easier, safer and faster.

Describing the automation move as ‘hallmark of excellence’, hospital director Dr Sunil Chandy said the push was a result of fusion of useful technology and human enterprise. While the hospital had been on relying on accurate, high- quality lab diagnosis to extend quality care services, the challenge all along has been on achieving prudent and regulated growth to meet the demand from the increasing patients flow, he added.

Hitherto when a sample specimen was received, it went through a pre-analytical phase, comprising registering, centrifuging to separate the plasma or serum or other things, de-capping the tube, bar-coding and organising the samples before it was sent to the analyser machines for testing various parameters.

All these steps were being done manually. It is during this phase that 70 per cent of errors occur and the technologists are maximally exposed to the sample.

The new pre-analyser system offered by multinational company Roche has addressed these issues with a lot of simpler solutions. The bar-coded samples can be loaded on to the pre-analyser system now and the ‘pick and place’ robotic arm would sort the samples and load them on the analyser specific racks or carriers, which could be sent to the analysers for various tests.

Also, Roche has developed customised software for the CMC, that integrates  the pre-analytics to the various analysers in the department and to the hospital information system.

General Superintendent Dr Selvakumar, who is also the head of the Department of Clinical Bio-chemistry, said that it was a big leap of automation in the history of the hospital. According to him, the first level of lab automation was started in CMC in 1984 when analysers were introduced for the first time in the country that could handle 250 tests/hour.

Then, bar-coding, pneumatic transport of samples from any part of the hospital followed over a period of time. With the introduction of the two pre-analysers now (each costing around `2.5 crore), the lab is fully automated to reduce the time taken for the tests by 50 per cent besides ensuring safety and accuracy of results.

The lab is manned by 24 technicians, to conduct as many as 170 tests of blood, urine and cerebrospinal fluid on a daily basis. The 40-year-old lab, which was accredited by the NABH in 2002 is presently handling around 5,000 samples a day, which can be scaled up depending on the future needs, Selvakumar added.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by V. NarayanaMurthy / July 12th, 2014