Staff at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust undertook an evaluation of the latest Roche blood gas analyser, the cobas 123 b POC system, during a four-week point-of-care trial. Stockport NHS Foundation Trust serves a population of approximately 350,000, predominantly across Stockport and the High Peak area of Derbyshire. The trust employs over 3600 staff across four sites. Its main hospital site is Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, with additional services provided at Cherry Tree Hospital and The Meadows in Stockport, and the Corbar Maternity Unit based 18 miles away in Buxton. The trust supports point-of-care testing (POCT) through a POCT coordinator and a POCT committee. The committee is a multidisciplinary group set up to ensure that all POCT is performed appropriately, accurately and safely. All POCT devices (eg blood glucose meters, blood gas analysers, urinalysis test strips, coagulation meters etc) must be registered by the committee so that issues such as training, maintenance and internal and external quality control can be addressed.
Point-of-care system
The new blood gas analyser from Roche, the cobas b 123 POC system, is designed to be easy to use and virtually maintenance free, making it ideal for use in critical care units, emergency rooms and other POC settings. It consolidates a number of important critical care test parameters on one system, including blood gases, haematocrit, bilirubin, electrolytes, glucose and lactate, allowing medical professionals to obtain rapid answers to a broad range of medical questions.
The system offers touchscreen operation to guide the user through operational processes step by step. The large colour display screen presents unambiguous results, with measurements that fall outside predefined acceptable limits highlighted clearly.
The only manual maintenance step required for the cobas b 123 is the replacement of consumables. Its highly durable electronics and mechanics make it robust and reliable, ensuring minimal downtime.
Smart chips on the consumables (ie sensors, fluid packs and QC packs) eliminate the need for scanning barcodes, thus facilitating inventory management. Inventory status is displayed clearly on the screen and step-by-step prompts guide the user through the changing of consumables with ease. Everything is front-loaded, which reduces the footprint of the analyser for environments in which space might be limited.
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