Blood collection process

With more than a 7 % increase of blood tubes per year, and with 80% of all decisions in a hospital-based on blood analysis, optimization of the blood collection process is essential. The factors to be considered include urgent need, high volumes, long-distance, no loss of samples, ensure accurate quality, etc.

Manual transportation of blood samples

To solve the problem, a porter can make regular rounds. However, when it comes to urgent samples (STAT samples) the problem is overcome by establishing a point of care facility. After some time, there is a tendency for each department to have a POCT system, and, often, more than 20 analyzing machines are installed. All these machines need maintenance, calibration and staff will need training. This is very expensive and suddenly the "easy" solution has become a heavy burden for the hospital.

Another solution is calling for a porter when the transportation of blood samples is required. This is a manual job that can cause delays, loss of samples, and destroyed samples. 

Avoid delays with Tempus600®

Automating the blood collection process

The blood collection process can also be automated, like all other daily routines. Automating a large hospital with, perhaps, 30 departments and 1000 beds, spread out on several buildings and thousands of square meters, is NOT an easy job.

Small robots are slow and space demanding. A pneumatic system, like PTS, built up as one big system, could seem like a good choice. Bear in mind, a system that combines all departments is like a big infrastructure highway system. Eventually, the system becomes too small to fulfill increasing demands and use. Consequently, everything must be bigger and faster.

The optimal solution

The only solution is to "spread out dedicated arms from the laboratory" to all departments, like Tempus600, that can transfer samples successively when drawn from the patient. No waiting time, no downtime, no loss of samples, no human involvement, with the same quality as if it was "in the human body” and 100% FIFO - fist in first out. The result is an automated blood collection process that treats all patient samples as STAT and urgent. 

An additional benefit, derived by using a dedicated system like Tempus600, is the optimal use of the central lab, when leading the blood tubes directly into the analyzing machines, with an even distribution. This gives the optimal blood collection process and helps the hospital to optimize the treatment for ALL patients and achieving the full benefit of the investments.