Image: The Radiometer 1st Automatic safePICO syringe and FLEX blood gas analyzer (Photo courtesy of Radiometer).

A novel automatic blood gas-analysis system increases testing speed, reduces errors, and improves patient and operator safety.

The Radiometer 1st Automatic is composed of a three-stage work procedure. The first stage, Sample, is based on the safePICO syringe, an arterial sampler that helps ensure patient and caregiver safety and identification. The safePICO reduce the risk of needle-stick injuries with an integrated safety sleeve that quickly removes air bubbles and avoids contact with patient blood. It also ensures fast and proper mixing with an integrated mixing device, and correctly identifies samples with unique barcode identification (ID) for each syringe.

The second stage, Scan, uses proprietary software to link the sampler, patient, and operator IDs by scanning them at the bedside, making data readily available to caregivers, and eliminating the risk of incorrect patient identification. The third stage, Go, involves the actual blood gas analysis and transfer of test results, correctly identified, to the caregivers’ personal digital assistant (PDA), a smartphone, or tablet device, the patient’s bedside monitor, or any other location as needed. The Radiometer 1st Automatic is a product of Radiometer (Brønshøj, Denmark).

“The unit handles just over 1,000 admissions a year, performing between 125 and 150 tests per day depending on the number of patients and their dependency,” said Sister Clare Williams, Clinical Information System (CIS) manager of the Adult Intensive Care Unit (AICU) at John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, United Kingdom). “Intensive care is all about saving time, and 1st Automatic’s walk-away capability allows us to obtain results quickly while increasing the amount of time we can spend with our patients.”

Blood gas analysis is used to determine the pH of the blood, the partial pressure of carbon dioxide and oxygen, and the bicarbonate level. Many blood gas analyzers will also report concentrations of lactate, hemoglobin, several electrolytes, oxyhemoglobin, methemoglobin, and carboxyhemoglobin. It is mainly used in pulmonology to determine gas exchange levels in the blood related to lung function, but has a variety of applications in other areas of medicine.

Guangzhou Jia Yu medical equipment Limited