Marking Infertility Awareness Week (23-29 April), a French laboratory has recently been helped by Beckman Coulter Diagnostics to automate a crucial step in the IVF process.
Testing for oestradiol is a crucial first step in the time-sensitive IVF process. Detailed here are the steps a French-based laboratory was able to take automate this previously time-consuming and labour-intensive task safely and effectively, while still meeting important deadlines.
The oestradiol test is a key indicator of the menstrual cycle. In medically assisted fertilisation, this parameter helps clinicians to identify if the impending oocyte is mature enough to be harvested. When the test result is within expected range, everything needs to happen within a 24-hour period.
These tests are vital. In France alone, one in 30 children is conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques, with in vitro fertilisation (IVF) representing 70% of all ART-conceived babies in France. The first French IVF baby was born in 1982, and since then, the number of in vitro fertilisations has risen continuously and at a remarkably linear rate. The share of babies conceived in vitro has been rising 0.5% every seven to eight years.
Emergency oestradiol sample handling in laboratories is typically time-consuming, completely manual and resource intensive. Despite these downsides, laboratories are often hesitant to automate this process. This was not the case for Cerballiance Hauts-de-France, a private laboratory based in Lille. To improve and accelerate sample handling, it partnered up with Beckman Coulter Diagnostics to build a fully automated process of managing oestradiol tubes.
The laboratory commits to validating and releasing emergency oestradiol results within three hours. This is critical to scheduling patient surgery the next day. Using Beckman Coulter’s REMISOL Advance middleware, connected to the laboratory’s real-time dashboard for enhanced visibility, Cerballiance Hauts-de-France was able to track daily performance and could identify the number of daily delayed emergency oestradiol samples.
Prior to automation improvements, the laboratory had to monopolise two technicians to work exclusively on emergency oestradiol tubes for five hours - from 10 AM to 3 PM - to fulfil the three-hour TAT requirement. Every single step of the workflow was performed manually and would require transporting blood samples to multiple places, such as centrifugation, analysers, refrigerator, as none of those samples were loaded on the PEX system.
In order to process samples more efficiently and reduce strain on technicians, the laboratory decided to fully automate the emergency oestradiol sample management process. Every tube is now loaded on the PEX, ending the constant search for patient specimens. PEX informs REMISOL in real time of each tube’s location. There is also better circulation in the laboratory due to reduced traffic, with fewer steps required for the technicians.
Read the full feature in the May issue of Pathology in Practice.
To learn more about Infertility Awareness Week, visit - www.infertilityawareness.org
For more information from Beckman Coulter Diagnostics please visit - www.BeckmanCoulter.com
