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MAS to Integrate ITC’s AVOXimeter 4000 and AVOXimeter 1000E to RALS^®-Plus Click here

Quest Diagnostics HemoCue Subsidiary to Add U.S. Hospital Laboratory Connectivity to Its HemoCue 201 DM Point-of-Care Click here

Radiometer Announces Limited Launch of ABL^® Series Blood Gas Analyzer Module to RALS®-Plus Click here

Blood Glucose Benchmarking Results in U.S. Hospitals for 2008 Announced Click here

Wireless Monitoring of Blood Glucose

Adoption of tight glycemic control (TGC) is increasing across the United States due to the reduction it offers in hyperglycemia, a common and serious condition in hospitalized patients associated with increased morbidity, mortality, length of stay and healthcare costs. TGC requires frequent testing of blood glucose and making any necessary insulin adjustments after each reading. It has been shown that intensive insulin therapy significantly decreases mortality and morbidity in hospitalized patients.¹

But simply performing the tests at the point of care (POC) isn't enough. Wireless blood glucose monitors that transmit results in real time are helping hospitals most effectively realize the benefits that TGC has to offer. Implications Because hyperglycemia is found commonly in ICU patients, TGC should regularly be utilized for all critically ill patients—not only for those already diagnosed with diabetes.  More >

Published Studies Validating Improved StatStrip® Glucose Strip Performance Now Available From Nova Biomedical
Waltham, MA, August 21, 2008 – The first published studies providing strong, independent validation of the laboratory quality performance of Nova Biomedical’s StatStrip® Glucose Test Strip for bedside glucose testing are now available. These studies were performed by leading hospitals in various parts of the world, including the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), Washington University School of Medicine & St. Louis Children’s Hospital (St. Louis, MO), and Rama Hospital (Bangkok, Thailand).

The studies compared StatStrip for precision, accuracy, and interferences versus current technology analyzers as well as reference chemistry analyzers used in the central laboratory. The results demonstrate that StatStrip consistently outperforms the conventional analyzers in terms of eliminating interferences and correlates closely to the laboratory reference methods.

Nova StatStrip™ Glucose And StatSensor™ Creatinine Meters Now Allow Off-Line Entry Of POC Test Results

Waltham, MA, August 6, 2008 – A new software enhancement for Nova StatStrip™ Glucose and StatSensor™ Creatinine point-of-care monitoring systems allows off-line entry of POC test results for immediate data capture. With the enhanced NovaNet™ instrument manager software, operators can use StatStrip touchscreen to manually enter virtually any off-line POC test result, such as pregnancy or urinalysis, and use the meter as a POC communication device to transmit the information to the hospital’s electronic database. The off-line entry capability saves time and labor compared to manually charting the result and then having to enter it later into the database. The unique NovaNet open system architecture allows results and reporting to be entirely user configurable. StatStrip and StatSensor meters can be pre-configured so that test results can be entered numerically, via multiple choice, or text. Results are displayed along with normal and abnormal ranges. QC results can be entered as well. Because the meters can be configured by location, the hospital can control which areas or departments can utilize this feature and which tests can be entered. All ADT and positive patient ID features are available for offline entry. A security feature requires operator certification to restrict data entry to authorized users. The enhanced NovaNet software also provides StatStrip and StatSensor Meters with the capability to scan both 1D and 2D barcodes. The codes supported are pdf417, Data Matrix, and Maxicode. Nova StatStrip Glucose and StatSensor Creatinine are handheld, whole blood meters for point-of-care testing. StatStrip Glucose test strips feature new Multi-Well™ measuring technology that creates a new class of analytical performance comparable to central laboratory testing. StatStrip Glucose measures and eliminates interferences from hematocrit, maltose, oxygen, acetaminophen, ascorbic acid, and uric acid. StatSensor Creatinine measures creatinine on whole blood in just 30 seconds, and calculates estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) by the MDRD or Cockcroft-Gault equations. StatSensor Creatinine’s small 1.2 microliter sample volume allows easy and virtually painless sample acquisition from a finger prick.

HemoCue granted FDA waiver for point-of-care testHemoCue, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics, has announced that its HemoCue Albumin 201 System is the first quantitative point-of-care test for screening, diagnosing and monitoring microalbuminuria to be granted a CLIA waiver by the FDA.

With the FDA CLIA waiver, non-laboratory trained physicians and other health care professionals in any health care facility with a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certificate of waiver in the US will be able to use the HemoCue Albumin 201 System to screen patients for microalbuminuria and begin treatment based on the test's results during a single office visit.

The HemoCue Albumin 201 System, which produces results within 90 seconds, enables physicians to identify and quantify low levels of albumin at the point of care for the purpose of screening, diagnosing, monitoring and to supplement clinical evidence in the treatment of microalbuminuria.

Stephen Suffin, interim chief laboratory officer of Quest Diagnostics, said: "The availability of a fast, reliable point-of-care test that physicians can perform in their own offices to quantitatively assess microalbumin may help patients at risk for chronic kidney disease to begin receiving the care they need at the time of their appointment with their physician."

For glucoses, tight theory a tough practice

What’s the difference between a protocol on paper and a protocol in practice? The cardiothoracic intensive care unit at Maine Medical Center, Portland, knows the answer from firsthand experience with implementing a program of tight glycemic control. “We’ve probably been hammering away on tight glycemic control for about three years, but a couple of years ago we really started to take a closer look at compliance by the nursing staff to see whether they were actually following the protocol we thought was so wonderful,” says Cheryll St. Onge, RN, BSN, MS, the unit’s nursing director. “The bottom line was, they weren’t.” More and more hospitals are adopting TGC—the active use of insulin to keep patients’ blood glucose at or near normal levels—as an effective strategy for improving patient outcomes. As they do, the data from the field are confirming what the literature has concluded: Tight glycemic control works. But it’s no cakewalk to implement it in a hospital.

At Maine Medical Center, in fact, the paper was the problem. After looking into the matter, St. Onge found that the original protocol, about five pages long and written in narrative form, was bogging down the process. “People just didn’t have or take the time to go through the fine details of what they should be doing,” she says.
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