To gain recurring cost savings and deliver a better service, the Analytical Toxicology Laboratory in Llandough has recently installed a pair of Dimension Xpand Plus analysers from Dade Behring
The pair of Dimension Xpand Plus analysers are undertaking Llandough's drugs of abuse (DoA) testing and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM).
By opting for this twin instrument-based solution, the laboratory, which is part of the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, will also gain flexibility in the way it can deal with urgent tests.
Further benefits will be derived from the inherent resilience provided by having two identical clinical chemistry analysers.
Alun Hutchings, the head of department, explained.
"As we provide a rapid clinical toxicology service 24 hours a day, it was vital that we invested in new analytical capability that gave us the greatest degree of inherent resilience, without compromising our turnaround times.
"By opting for a pair of Dimension Xpand Plus analysers, we can run our entire test repertoire on each instrument, if required, thereby dealing successfully with any downtime".
Not that Hutchings expects too many unforeseen problems.
"A strong appeal of the Dimension Xpand Plus analyser was that we knew it was a thoroughly market-tested piece of kit, with an excellent reputation for reliability, that used standard Syva Emit II Plus reagents.
"We also liked the way these were presented in the Flex reagent cartridge system, which means that the assays were incredibly simple to load and offered calibration stability of up to 90 days.
"To us, this not only indicated we were investing in a very stable analytical platform and reagent system, but also generated scope for considerable savings.
"This, and the overall package we were offered by Dade Behring, meant we could make significant, recurring savings and help meet our cost reduction targets.
"It also meant we could move back to DoA testing technology that we had worked with in the past, and with which we had been extremely satisfied".
On average, the pair of analysers will perform over 100,000 tests per year.
These will be a mixture of DoA and TDM.
The majority of the DoA samples will come from local addiction treatment centres, where they play a key role in helping to identify patients who should be enrolled onto drug replacement programmes.
To maximise the responsiveness of the laboratory, Hutchings runs approximately 70% of the workload on one of the Dimension Xpand Plus analysers, and the remainder on the other, which leaves it with ample capacity to respond to urgent TDM requests.
Whenever there is any downtime, he can run all the tests he needs on one of the analysers, without developing a bottleneck.
