Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the first in the UK to experience the benefits of remote bidirectional access to its ABX Pentra 60C+ Point of Care (POC) haematology analysers, via Pentra SAfe. Eight of these compact analysers from HORIBA Medical are used in various POC locations managed by the Trust’s dedicated POC team. These include A&E, oncology clinics, a healthcare centre in Aldershot and a satellite community hospital. The Pentra SAfe solution enables the Trust to comply with CPA accreditation requirements by ensuring that password protected access and full audit trails are available for patient safety purposes.

“The functionality of Pentra SAfe is a dream come true for a Point of Care Manager, since I now have complete bidirectional communication from my desktop with our ABX Pentra 60C+ analysers whatever their location,” said Lynda Petley, POC Manager at Frimley. “I can also monitor in real time exactly who and how they are using them to ensure that all users are fully competent and the analysers are performing optimally.”

Meeting CPA requirements is fundamental for all tests undertaken at the point of care, since it is essential to ensure that only trained personnel who can fully understand the correct operation of remote analysers have access to them. Guaranteeing the quality of results that doctors ultimately act upon is crucial to the safety of patients. All trained and approved users are allocated a unique barcode identifier by the Frimley POC team to securely access an analyser’s operating system via Pentra SAfe. Any users not meeting the strict competency standards required can be locked out until they are retrained by the POC team who monitor results’ quality on a daily basis.

“Having full audit capability via Pentra SAfe means that we are able to police all our POC haematology analysers and the competency of the individual users, meaning that we can be completely confident in our compliance with CPA requirements and of course quality of results produced,” continued Lynda Petley. “We have found this crucial in an A&E environment for example, where there is a high turnover of junior doctors who all require constant training and assessment. Our ability to withdraw access rights for a particular barcode identifier gives us the teeth we require to be able to close the training loop.”

In addition to the password functionality of the Pentra SAfe, which also locks the analyser’s screen after it has been idle for a user defined time period, the new solution also enables fully secure remote access for POC Managers to all ABX Pentra 60C+ under their supervision.

“The bidirectional access functionality means that I can access all files and run an analyser as if I were in front of it, except for physically loading samples. This means that I can not only observe in real time performance of users and view patient results, but I can also monitor reagent levels, instigate a cleaning cycle and even monitor the Quality Control performance of the system as required,” added Lynda Petley. “This functionality has proven invaluable by enabling me to monitor from my office in Frimley, Surrey, our ABX Pentra 60C+ in our satellite lab at Lymington Community Hospital in the New Forest!”

The POC team at Frimley Park has been using ABX Pentra 60C+ analysers successfully for a number of years. In addition to its small footprint with five-part differential analysis, the outstanding technical capabilities providing consistently accurate results are what make the ABX Pentra 60C+ an ideal analyser for the many POC locations at Frimley. This fully reliable POC haematology analysis has enabled the Trust to meet: 4 hour TAT’s in A&E, create ‘one stop shop’ oncology clinics, minimise chemotherapy drug wastage and maximise on patient convenience by offering full blood counts in satellite locations.

“The ABX Pentra 60C+ has already proven to be a highly successful haematology analyser in POC locations. Now having the Pentra SAfe solution offering full audit trails and secure remote bidirectional access means that the ABX Pentra 60C+ can be described as a true point of care analyser with its future horizons completely opened up,” concluded Lynda Petley.

ABOUT HORIBA Medical
As experts in blood analysis, for over 10 years HORIBA Medical UK (formerly HORIBA ABX UK) has been directly supplying and supporting haematologists and clinical chemists throughout the UK. From compact point of care analysers to high throughput systems, HORIBA Medical has successfully developed an array of haematology analysers to meet all needs and enable analysis anywhere it is required. Looking after these customers and at the foundation of HORIBA Medical is its excellent service and support network, this UK team is made up of 30 personnel.
In addition to large NHS laboratories, HORIBA Medical systems are found in many areas of point of care and specialist analysis, including A&E, sports science and health and safety. Its benchtop analysers, such as the ABX Pentra 60C+ for haematology and ABX Pentra 400 for chemistry analyses, are proving their worth in these environments due to their exceptional flexibility and ease of use.

HORIBA Medical is one of the five major operators in the automated haematology analyser market. HORIBA Medical employs more than 1,000 staff in its sites and subsidiaries, producing nearly 7,500 analysers per year and over 8,000 tons of reagents. This makes HORIBA Medical the leading developer and manufacturer of haematology diagnostic systems in the world.

For further information, please visit www.horiba.com/uk/medical