Hematology

• BECKMAN COULTER

DxH 800 Systems Immediately Reduced Differentials by 200/0

Hutcheson Medical Center Achieves Space and Cost Savings and Improved Workflow Efficiency with two DxH 800 Coulter Cellular Analysis Systems

Laboratory Profile:

• Hutcheson Medical Center, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, USA

• 300-bed health care system

• Bills approximately 43,300 hematology tests a year or about 11 9 per day

Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, was actually a Fort and had its origin

during the Civil War. It was the gateway to Atlanta. The old

Post Hospital, which was originally built in 1904, played an

important role during WWI and WWI/ where it served many

of the soldiers who were fighting for our nation's freedom.

After WWI/ the Fort was decommissioned and so was the

hospital. Since there was a great need for a hospital to serve

the area, local county governments formed an organization

and worked together to purchase the hospital from the U.S.

government along with 90 acres of land. The current hospital

was actually built and opened in 1953. From its historic

beginnings, Hutcheson Medical Center is now a 300-bed

hospital system, comprised of sub-acute beds, acute care

• Operates 2417

• Relies on two UniCel DxH 800 Coulter Cellular Analysis Systems

Laboratory Goals

• Improve instrument technology

• Increase lab efficiency

• Optimize lab space

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CS-13423A

Laboratory Results

• Replaced a Gen'S and a COULTER STKS system with two UniCel DxH 800 Coulter Cellular Analysis Systems

• Reduced manual differentials 15-20%

• Reduced reagent costs by $85,000 per year, which allowed them to finance the instrumentation.

• Realized benefits from using two systems for stand-alone tests or as a backup system

• Was able to form Core lab with the two DxH 800s

beds, and nursing home beds. The facility

also has a home health care agency, hospice

and a number of outlying physician offices

and clinics. A second campus houses an

ambulatory surgery center as well as the only

cancer treatment center in the Chattanooga­

metropolitan area.

Hutcheson Medical Center had two legacy

systems, a Gen' S and a COULTER STKS.

Beckman Coulter planned to obsolete and

discontinue the Gen ' S and STKS systems;

so, the search was on to replace both and

they needed to do it quickly.

Finding the Right System

Facing their immediate critical need, Hutcheson began to

consider its hematology instrument options.

The Beckman Coulter sales representative invited the former

director and Gerald Faircloth, Executive Vice President

and Chief Operating Officer for the Hutcheson Medical

Center, to the Beckman Coulter Vision Center in Atlanta and

demonstrated the DxH 800. That was the first Mr. Faircloth

knew of Beckman Coulter's DxH 800 hematology system and

he was impressed.

Blood Banking

Centrifugation

Chemistry

Flow Cytometry

Hematology

Hemostasis

Immunoassay

Information Systems

Lab Automation

Molecular Diagnostics

Rapid Diagnostics

4

liMy staff is more efficient. They are

turning out results in a shorter timeframe.

If my staff is happy, then I'm a happy

camper. And our physicians are happy

because we are getting the results out

to them in a shorter timeframe. II .................................................

Cindy Parrish

From a financial perspective, Mr. Faircloth was not

only interested in reliability but als'o in the return on

investment. According to Mr. Faircloth, "One of the

things that we were looking for was affordability,

because most hospitals these days don't have a lot

of cash sitting around. So one of my first questions

to the Director of Laboratory Services was "how are

we going to pay for this?' It doesn't generate any

additional revenue so how are we going to pay for it?

And one of things that she said was that we would

save at least $85,000 a year in reagent costs. Well

... that automatically got my attention . Outside of the

cost considerations we were strategically looking to

improve our turnaround times in the ED and also to

improve our wait times and patient satisfaction. Today,

with the help of the two DxH 800s that we purchased ...

we have. Our physicians are extremely pleased with

the turnaround times and the test results that we are

getting. Prior to the purchase of the DxH 800s we had

a lot of complaints. Our patient satisfaction levels have

gone up to the 90th percentile, which means we are

better than 90% of the hospitals in the country insofar

as patient satisfaction in our ED. We've seen our ED

Hutcheson Medical Center, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA.

volumes go up about 10% over the prior year. The

national turnaround time is about 4 hours and ours is

down to about 3.5 hours. Purchasing the DxH 800s

from Beckman Coulter, allowed us to meet those goals."

A Fast and Efficient Installation

Once the decision was made to purchase the two

DxH 800 hematology systems, it was imperative that

the instrumentation be installed quickly. Cindy Parrish,

MBA, MT (ASCP) Administrative Director for Laboratory

Services at Hutcheson Medical Center, commented

that, "The installation went very well. It was easy for us.

Our staff was ready for it. They needed this change.

They needed this technology. When we gave Beckman

Coulter our timeline of 35-40 days they had the support

and the people we needed to get the job done in time.

We were so excited about getting the instruments that

we even put tape on the laboratory floor to indicate

the footprint where the instruments were going to be

placed. The training that our folks received was great.

They came back with

some good ideas."

Deavin Blansit,

Hematology Lead

Technologist added,

"The training was

excellent. I spent four

days in Miami and the

training personnel there Deavin Blansit Hematology Lead Technologist were great. They went

out of their way to

answer our questions on the hardware and software

updates. The installation process for the DxH 800 was a

very smooth transition. We had an excellent applications

specialist who was a great resource. He walked us

through everything including writing decision rules and

made taking the DxH systems live easy and smooth.

Our service rep was onsite for our "go-live" day. He

continues to call a couple of times a week just to make

sure there are no issues. He has been a great resource

for us and keeps on top of everything we need."

Reaping the Rewards

Within the first week, Hutcheson Medical Center

was seeing results and meeting many of the goals

they had set. Cindy Parrish, Administrative Director of

Laboratory Services remarked that the two DxH 800

systems "immediately produced a reduction in manual

o

differentials by about 15-20%

over what they had been

doing. We had been seeing

a review rate of about 25%

of our patient population

and we are already within a

week sitting at a 10% manual

differential review rate. We

have the potential to actually

Cindy Parrish, MBA, MT (ASCP), SC, SH, DIM, Administrative Director, Laboratory Services at Hutcheson Medical Center.

take those values down even further at this point

with some studies we are doing. Our ultimate goal is

between 7-8% differential review rate."

"By bringing in two systems, and putting them side-by­

side, we were able to create the Core Lab that we had

been working on for a couple of months. We needed to

have two instruments that we could alternate between or

to use simultaneously. It gave us the flexibility in defining

differential parameters

that would meet the

needs of our patient

populations. Like most

labs we're very limited in

space so we needed a

compact instrument so

that we could optimize the

available space in the laboratory."

"My staff is more efficient. They are turning out

results in a shorter timeframe. If my staff is happy,

then I'm a happy camper. And our physicians are

happy because we are getting the results out to them in

a shorter timeframe."

New Hardware and Software Improvements

After a seamless installation of roughly 40 days, the

laboratory was ready to put the DxH 800s to the real

test. Sissy Givens, Core Lab Supervisor, was highly

impressed with the performance of the DxH 800. "One

of the things that impressed me is that there is no rocker

or any pinch valves to deal with, which means

virtually no maintenance."

Other features that Sissy likes include the ability to scan

in the reagents with the barcode feature rather than type

in the information. "You don't have to worry about going

from primary mode to secondary mode. And you don't

have to stand there waiting . You just put the microtainer

on and walk away. I also like the 1 O-liter cubes that

are much easier to lift than the 20-liter cubes on other

instrumentation. So changing out the reagents is much

easier than before."

"The smaller footprint of the instrument

gives us more working room which, in

turn, allowed us to rearrange the other

equipment into one area for a true

Core Lab concept."

"One of the things that is of benefit to

our patients is that we now can use

smaller amounts of specimen. We only Sissy Givens

need 165 microliters whether we use a Core Laboratory Supervisor

rack or a microtainer. So, we don't have to get as much

sample from our patients. Additionally, we don't use as

much OC material so our OC goes further."

Deavin Blansit, Hematology Lead Technologist, who is

responsible for patient testing , OC review, IOAP reports

and maintenance on the hematology analyzers, was

immediately impressed with the linearity limits and the

specificity of the instruments.

"It greatly cut down on the

number of diffs which has

freed me up to work

on other projects."

o

"Setting up the OC is very simple. You can just scan

one barcode and it downloads your normal, high and

low OC. There is no more mode-to-mode OC. It

saves time. And you don't have to have a schedule

where you run in open and closed mode. I also like

the fact that the Retics are now random access.

You don't have to be in the correct function or the

correct test mode."

"I love the fact that the LATRON on the DxH 800

is a barcodeable vial so it decreases a lot of contamination

that you used to get from manual probes. The IOAP is a lot of easier to

use. It takes just a few clicks of the mouse instead of having to download

it on a disk and then going to the Internet."

Beckman Coulter's PROService, a diagnostics technology that allows

technicians to remotely monitor the customer's DxH 800 instrumentation

and proactively troubleshoot issues, has been a great benefit to the lab

technicians at Hutcheson Medical Center. Deavin Blansit notes that she has

used the PROService on a few occasions. "It's been very helpful. Instead of

trying to describe what my screen says or what a part looks like to my service

representative, they are able to remotely see my screen, manipulate things and

capture LIS files."

Hutcheson Medical Center is very pleased with the purchase of their two DxH 800

Coulter Cellular Analysis Systems. They were able to transition to the new systems

seamlessly and have been able to achieve many of their goals including quicker

turnaround times, reduced reagent costs and improved patient satisfaction.

Beckman Coulter, the stylized logo, UniCel, and COULTER are registered trademarks of Beckman Coulter, Inc. DxH, Gen'S, STKS, and LATRON are trademarks 01 Beckman Coulter, Inc. Printed with soy ink

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