Saturday, January 28, 2017
In connection with the extension and reconstruction of Viborg Regional Hospital, a pneumatic transport system and a new, fully automatic analysis system for blood tests will be introduced. The new systems mean faster response times for blood tests and thus also faster treatment for the patients.
The new pneumatic transport system is tailor made for the many blood tests taken in the hospital wards every day, and sent for analysis in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry.
Currently the hospital's bioanalysts start each day with a tour of the wards, where they take blood tests from up to 150 patients, before they return to the Department of Clinical Biochemistry in order to analyse the samples. In the future they will be able to send the samples off as they go, from the pneumatic transport system's 10 sending stations in the individual wards. Instead of getting a bundle of tests to analyse all at once, the tests will, in the future, tick into the system continuously, as they are taken.
- We will get a better test flow, so we will be able to send answers back to the wards and the patients a lot faster than today. Similarly, the wards will have the option of prioritising which of the tests need responses most urgently, says the lead bioanalyst Frank Andersen, from the Department of Clinical Biochemistry.
While the bioanalysts can currently provide a response to a routine blood test within four hours, the wards will be able to get a reply considerably faster in the future. This means, among other things, that the wards will often have a response ready before their rounds, and will thus be able to initiate the correct treatment faster, or get the patient discharged, making room for the next patient.
The bioanalysts take blood tests all day, every day, and each year this amounts to tests from about 250,000 patients. Roughly 600,000 sample tubes per year - plus tests from general practioners. Thus the time benefit is obvious.
While the response time for routine blood tests will be markedly reduced, in the future the bioanalysts will also handle urgent and vitally important tests notably faster than today.
From a purely practical perspective, the future pneumatic transport system will consist of a total of 10 sending stations in the emergency centre and in the existing hospital. The stations, which are reminiscent of the bottle-recycling machines in supermarkets when it comes to ease of use, will be installed in the units and clinics where most tests are generally taken. From here the samples will be sent by compressed air down to the forthcoming, fully automatic analysis system in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry. Thus the test is only handled once, and arrives quickly and securely.
- We have chosen a very simple pneumatic transport system, which is solely used for blood samples, and where each sending station directly down to the Department of Clinical Biochemistry. This means that we will have a very reliable system, and won't need to worry about a lot of things breaking or winding up in unwanted places, explains the technical project manager Anders Strandgaard Olsen of the hospital's Project department.
He simultaneously points out that the chosen pneumatic transport system distinguishes itself in consisting of narrow pipes, which can be built into both the new emergency centre and the existing hospital.
The craftsmen will, over the coming months, begin to install the new system, and the first blood test is expected to be sent by the pneumatic transport system in the beginning of 2018, at which point the new automatic analysis conveyor will be operational.
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Pneumatic transport system and automation provides patients with faster blood test responses ;
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