Point of care (POC) blood glucose and blood gas testing at St James Hospital, Dublin is managed centrally through the Roche cobas® IT 1000 point of care data management software. This has allowed significant time savings and more efficient workload management, and has helped the hospital to meet accreditation requirements for POC testing.
Based in the Biochemistry Department, POC Coordinator at St James, Felicity Dempsey, manages 110 fully connected Accu-Chek® Inform II glucose meters and 5 cobas b 221 blood gas analysers located throughout the hospital. There is at least one glucose meter in every ward and department in the hospital, and in critical areas such as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) there is one meter per bed. The blood gas analysers are located in the ICU, the cardiac ICU, A&E and theatre.
“To check on all the POC devices in person would require considerable time and energy,” Felicity commented. “For me, the cobas IT 1000 connectivity is essential, allowing me to manage and monitor the instruments remotely from my desk.”
“Accreditation requirements have brought additional paperwork and documentation. Remote access and central management of the POC instruments through cobas IT 1000 allows me to better organise my workload and cuts down the amount of time I need to leave my desk, helping me to keep on top of everything.”
cobas IT 1000 enables Felicity to monitor quality control (QC) on all the blood glucose meters, with automatic lockout if daily QC has not been performed, and password protection ensures that only fully trained and certified users can access the meters. The system also allows her to access the data required for their external quality assurance (EQA) scheme quickly and easily, which is vital for accreditation requirements. With around 3,500 operators to manage and keep track of, the Roche Training Specialist Service is also of enormous value.
“We will shortly be setting up cobas Academy through cobas IT 1000, which will allow operators to be recertified online. Our nurses are very busy and so this will be much easier and more convenient for them, ensuring they spend as little time as possible away from patients.”
“The support and customer service from Roche has been second to none,” concluded Felicity.