Improving Workflow Excellence with the Tosoh G11

Lovisenberg Diaconal Hospital, Norway

An interview with Leading Biomedical Scientist Hanne E. Lunde and May-Linn S. Sterud, Biomedical Scientist.

Hanne E. Lunde, the leading biomedical scientist in Haematology, has worked at the Lovisenberg Laboratory for 17 years. The past 13 years she has worked very closely with May-Linn Sterud, one of the superusers in the haematology team.

Several changes have occurred throughout the years, where among others, the most important is the increased volume of testing. Contributing factors are the increase in the elderly population, increasing immigration rates – and finally, an increasing number of tests due to the adoption of personalised medicine.

The Lovisenberg Laboratory has been a Sysmex customer for decades and developed from solutions with low automation/manual analysers and as technological advancements were introduced, the laboratory has gained experience in the consolidation, integration and automation of the instruments. As a result, Lovisenberg Laboratory has been able to promote staff to higher-value responsibilities and save money in tube costs and – all of this while increasing clinicians' trust in the laboratory to support excellence in patient diagnostics and care.

In 2018, due to the continuous increase in the number of samples, the laboratory implemented the new XN-9000 automation line consisting of an XN-10 and XN-20, thus to automate all haematology samples.

The Sysmex XN-9000 system delivers extensive automation and workflow optimisation and the possibility for customisation and traceability. The efficiency gained empowered the staff to think differently – “would it be possible to automate the HbA1c assays?”

Before the move to the Tosoh G11, Lovisenberg only analysed HbA1c at daytime from Monday-Friday. Now they have the possibility to analyse HbA1c samples 24/7 and the high stability of the Tosoh G11 analyser makes it a perfect automation solution.

Hanne E. Lunde elaborates further, “One of the greatest improvements we have achieved is during the evening and night shift. As there are fewer people at work, we can focus on other tasks rather than moving samples from one analyser to another and with the Extended IPU we have integrated the HbA1c validation with haematology validation. This means that all results can be validated from the same place in the laboratory and we don’t have to walk to different analysers to validate results. Another huge benefit is that all normal chromatograms are autovalidated, which means that we only need to interpret and validate abnormal chromatograms”.

Diagnosing and monitoring the treatment of people with diabetes takes up considerable resources in laboratories. HbA1c has been the mainstay of monitoring glycaemic control in people with diabetes for many years. Hanne explains that HPLC assays have been a part of the Lovisenberg Laboratory for the 17 years she has worked there, although several steps were performed manually, which resulted in a very time-consuming process.

Following the installation of the Tosoh G11 analyser connected to the Sysmex automated haematology XN-Series line, the manual sample handling is almost non-existent. When the laboratory receives samples, the samples are loaded in Sysmex racks and then loaded onto the Sysmex automation line. “We don’t have to touch either haematology or HbA1c samples again until they are fully analysed,” says Hanne.

The consolidation of assays in one EDTA tube instead of two has also drastically optimised the preanalytical work.