Recent years have witnessed great development of TLA (Total Laboratory Automation) technology, however, its application hit the bottleneck of high cost and openess to other parties' instruments. Specifically speaking, the initial purchase of the medical devices requires large sum of money and the new system can hardly be compatible with existing equipment. This thesis proposes a new thought for system implementation that through incremental upgrade, the initial capital investment can be reduced and through open architecture and interfaces, the seamless connection of different devices can be achieved. This thesis elaborates on the standards that open architecture design should follow in aspect of mechanics, electro-communication and information interaction and the key technology points in system implementation.
Automation, Laboratory ; Computer Systems

Automation ; Laboratories ; Tertiary Healthcare

BACKGROUND: Pre-transfusion tests are important for performing safe transfusion and there is a need to standardize the process of these tests. In blood banks, automation of tests is under developed and there is always a high risk of error. Automatic instruments for blood bank tests are used in blood centers where a great volume of tests are performed. However, other small scale hospitals have little experience with automatic blood bank instruments. Here, we evaluated the newly developed automatic instrument, the AutoVue Innova (Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Raritan, NJ, USA), for performing unexpected antibody screening tests and we compared this to other well known systems. METHODS: In a comparative study, a total of 136 samples, including 28 antibody screening positive samples and 108 negative samples, were tested in parallel by the LISS/Coombs card (DiaMed Ag, Cresssier, Morat, Switzerland) and the AutoVue Innova. The positive samples that were proven by the LISS/Coombs card and the AutoVue Innova were identified by the ID-DiaCell panel (DiaMed Ag, Cresssier, Morat, Switzerland) and the 0.8% Resolve Panel A (Ortho, Raritan, NJ, USA), respectively. Discrepant samples were rechecked by the Identisera Diana (Diagnostic Grifols, Barcelona, Spain). RESULTS: Among the 136 samples, 134 results (98.5%) of the AutoVue Innova agreed with those of the LISS/Coombs card and 2 results were discrepant. These two results were antibody screening positive only on the AutoVue and they were identified as being anti-Lewis(a). CONCLUSION: The unexpected antibody screening tests using the AutoVue Innova showed reliable results for general accuracy and they were useful in aspect of a decreased workload and increased safety, and even for less experienced persons.
Automation ; Blood Banks ; Mass Screening

BACKGROUND: Pre-transfusion tests are important for performing safe transfusion and there is a need to standardize the process of these tests. In blood banks, automation of tests is under developed and there is always a high risk of error. Automatic instruments for blood bank tests are used in blood centers where a great volume of tests are performed. However, other small scale hospitals have little experience with automatic blood bank instruments. Here, we evaluated the newly developed automatic instrument, the AutoVue Innova (Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Raritan, NJ, USA), for performing unexpected antibody screening tests and we compared this to other well known systems. METHODS: In a comparative study, a total of 136 samples, including 28 antibody screening positive samples and 108 negative samples, were tested in parallel by the LISS/Coombs card (DiaMed Ag, Cresssier, Morat, Switzerland) and the AutoVue Innova. The positive samples that were proven by the LISS/Coombs card and the AutoVue Innova were identified by the ID-DiaCell panel (DiaMed Ag, Cresssier, Morat, Switzerland) and the 0.8% Resolve Panel A (Ortho, Raritan, NJ, USA), respectively. Discrepant samples were rechecked by the Identisera Diana (Diagnostic Grifols, Barcelona, Spain). RESULTS: Among the 136 samples, 134 results (98.5%) of the AutoVue Innova agreed with those of the LISS/Coombs card and 2 results were discrepant. These two results were antibody screening positive only on the AutoVue and they were identified as being anti-Lewis(a). CONCLUSION: The unexpected antibody screening tests using the AutoVue Innova showed reliable results for general accuracy and they were useful in aspect of a decreased workload and increased safety, and even for less experienced persons.
Automation ; Blood Banks ; Mass Screening

Today's automated hematology analyzers capable of performing a full CBC and a differential leukocyte count (DLC) on whole blood, particularly in a closed tube system, using cytochemistry or impedance-based flow cytometry technology coupled with laser light scattering, conductivity and/or differential cell lysis, are here to stay. Their need and popularity among at least the large, cost and quality-conscious clinical laboratories have been growing for the past few years and will continue to do so in the years ahead. The efficiency and reliability of several of these analyzers in performing complete CBCD (CBC and DLC) and in flagging significant abnormalities have been tested and found acceptable with the need to review a stained blood smear or perform a manual DLC to confirm or obtain additional information on selected cases.
Automation ; Human ; Leukocyte Count/*methods

BACKGROUND: An automation system for ABO-RhD typing and antibody screening has been developed and its use is increasing. We compared the results of ABO-RhD typing and antibody screening tests using the manual (ABO-RhD typing) or semiautomated (antibody screening) method and with the automation instruments Galileo NEO (Immucor Gamma, Norcoss, USA) and QWALYS-3 (DIAGAST, Loos Cedex, France). METHODS: A total of 332 blood samples were tested for ABO-RhD typing in comparison with routine manual tests, and 236 samples for antibody screening in comparison with DS-Screening II (Bio-Rad Laboratories, 1785 Cressier FR, Switzerland). We evaluated the performance of Galileo NEO and QWALYS-3 in terms of concordance, carryover, and sensitivity test for ABO-RhD typing and antibody screening. RESULTS: The concordance rates of ABO-RhD typing results between the manual methods and the two instruments were 99.4% for Galileo NEO and 99.1% for QWALYS-3, respectively. On antibody screening tests, a concordance rate of 97.9% was observed between the semiautomated method and Galileo NEO or QWALYS-3, because of discordance in five specimens. The carryover was not observed for ABO-RhD typing and antibody screening. The overall sensitivity of the two automation instruments appears to be parallel with that of DS-Screening II except for anti-E. CONCLUSION: The Galileo NEO and QWALYS-3 system showed good performance, it can be used with confidence for routine pre-transfusion testing in the blood bank.
Automation ; Blood Banks* ; Mass Screening*

Liquid level detection (LLD) is necessary for eliminating carry-over of needle's outside by limiting the depth the needle probes into liquid in auto clinical laboratory analyzers. This paper listed various demands of liquid-handling system under different situations; reviewed various LLD techniques, such as capacitive, air pressure, mechanical vibration, ultrasound, light reflection, CCD imaging etc.; briefly introduced the working principles, features, and limitation of the LLDs; and recapitulated the characteristics of contact and non-contact LLDs. Lastly, the next generation technique of LLD is prospected.
Automation ; Clinical Laboratory Techniques ; instrumentation ; methods

This paper introduces a kind of evaluation method in pipetting performance on new fully automated biochemistry analyzers by experiments. The performance of sample pipetting volume is confirmed by dye dilution method, the performance of reagent pipetting volume and dummy volume is done by weighing method. Meanwhile, researches and comparative researches on dummy volumes in different conditions have been made, providing valuable reference for clinical applications of automatic biochemistry analyzers.
Automation, Laboratory ; instrumentation ; methods ; Biochemistry ; instrumentation ; methods

The cardiovascular circulation feedback control treatment instrument (CFCTI) is an automatic feedback control treatment system, which has the function of monitoring, alarming, trouble self-diagnosis and testing on the line in the closed loop. The instrument is designed based on the successful clinical experiences and the data are inputted into the computer in real-time through a pressure sensor and A/D card. User interface window is set up for the doctor's choosing different medicine. The orders are outputted to control the dose of medicine through the transfusion system. The response to medicine is updated continually. CFCTI can avoid the man-made errors and the long interval of sampling. Its reliability and accuracy in rescuing the critical patients are much higher than the traditional methods.
Automation ; instrumentation ; Cardiovascular System ; Feedback ; Medication Systems

The authors devdeloped a computer program for automatic coding of ACR (American College of Radiology) code. The automatic coding of the ACR code is essential for computerization of the data in the department of radiology. This program was written in FoxBASE language and has been used for automatic coding of diagnosis in the Deparment of Radiology, Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital since May 1992. The ACR dictionary files consisted of 11 files, one for the organ code and the others for the pathology code. The organ code was obtained by typing organ name or code number itself among the upper and lower level codes of the selected one that were simultaneously displayed on the screen. According to the first number of the selected organ code. the corresponding pathology code file was chosen augomatically. By the similar fashion of organ code selection, the proper pathologic dode was obtained. An example of obtained ACR code is "131.3661". This procedure was reproducible regardless of the number of fields of data. Bacause this program was written in "User's Defined Function" from, decoding of the stored ACR code was achieved by this same program and incoporation of this program into another data processing program was possible. This program had merits of simple operation, accurate and detail coding, and easy adjustment for another program. Therefore, this program can be used for automation of routine work in the department of radiology.
Automation ; Clinical Coding* ; Diagnosis ; Methods* ; Pathology ; Protestantism