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What are the issues with current blood sampling methods?

Producing a high quality sample is crucial to yielding an accurate test result. Its even more difficult when obtaining such samples from Infants, elderly and critically ill patients that require a venous micro collection.

 

Below are some common mishaps that occur in current blood sampling systems and a solution to improve safety standards and quality of care for both patients, health workers, and laboratory tests.

Two Methods Currently Used for Blood Sampling

  • USA uses a minimal vacuum tube of 3ml, or draw by syringe and transfer to another tube or possibly more for equipment compatibility.

  • Europe uses a manually generated vacuum syringe-tube (Sarstedt/Monovette). Special equipment is required for analysis.

Both Methods Have Problems

  • Requires user to be skilled in drawing fragile patients

  • Pre-applied additives require multiple SKU’s

  • Vacuum tubes have excessive force to increase product shelf life; this may damage blood

  • Vacuum tubes collect up to ten times the amount of blood needed for tests

  • Increased danger of damaged blood (hemolysis) from systems that utilize manually generated force

  • Samples must to be collected per the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Guidelines GP41-A6 (formerly H3-A6, 6th Edition) which include:

    • Samples need to be collected in proper order

    • Samples need to be manually mixed in proper procedure

  • Samples are manually labeled and prone to errors

  • Open systems require blood transfer, which creates additional risk of needle-stick injuries or blood splashing to technicians as well as potential for contamination 

  • Additional components may be required per patient needs such as smaller syringes and specialized pediatric tubes

  • Mixing components from different manufactures can create a problem

  • Current systems are difficult to draw multiple blood samples

  • Preexisting vacuum  or manually produced vacuum may be too strong for patients causing collapsed veins, nerve damage, hematoma, hemolysis, etc.

  • Due to air in tubing of a wing-set, if used in connection with vacuum tubes, a discard tube needs to be collected first. This increases unneeded blood volume 

  • Present devices can not eliminate hemolysis, therefore instrumentation accommodates a certain percentage of hemolysis. A cleaner specimen will provide superiors results. 

Organizing Test Tubes

Introducing Automated Micro-Volume Collection System 

The solution to improve safety standards and quality of care for both patients, health workers, and laboratory tests

The Micro-Volume Collection Device (AMVC)  Resolves Current Problems

  •  Eliminates additional SKUs by using two generic micro-collection tubes

  • AMVC Micro-collection tubes adhere to current CAP regulations of 300um to 1000um of volume

  • Regardless of patient needs, no additional components are needed

  • Each type of tube is customized with the appropriate anticoagulant or additive at the point of collection.

  • The blood is mixed with the anticoagulant immediately, optimizing the specimen quality and eliminating the possibility of human error

  • Vacuum is generated in the tube at the point of collection, accommodating patient needs and providing a cleaner specimen 

  • Generated vacuum eliminates the need for expiration dates and the resulting expense of discarded supplies

  • The system is closed, resulting in samples sent straight to laboratory without the need for blood transfer. Resulting in a safer quality sample

  • The device is interfaced with the Hospital and Laboratory Information systems, thereby ensuring positive patient identification

  • This LIS/device interface also ensures that the specimens are collected in the correct sequence, without any interaction by the health care provider 

  • The collected specimens are labeled by the device before they can be removed, eliminating the possibility of mislabeling

  • The collected specimens are fully compatible with all current laboratory instrumentation and are seamlessly integrated into the workflow without any special handling.

Results

For the Patient- 

  • Cleaner sample quality = better, more accurate results

  • Minimal blood volumes are collected, thereby minimizing the possibility of hospital-acquired anemia and prolonged recuperations or other complications

  • The AMVC system alleviates the need for repeat blood draw

For the Hospital- 

  • No waste caused by expiration of supplies, no need to rotate supplies, less room needed for storage of a variety of collection tubes

  • Closed system keeping health care workers at less risk 

  • HIS/LIS interface ensures regulatory compliance and resulting patient safety

  • Reduced exposure to liability claims due to the complete audit trail documentation for the specimen collection

For the Vendor- 

  • Reduced production costs

  • Increased profits

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