Nevertheless, blood testing is an important part of the medical treatment process, which provides a valuable basis for diagnosis and treatment in clinical practice. In a large-scale battlefield against diseases like the hospital, the clinical laboratory department serves as a “scout” in the role of data collection and report analysis in the fight at the frontlines.
Located on the bank of Qiantang River, The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine is the first and largest tertiary comprehensive children's hospital in Zhejiang Province that integrates children's medical treatment, health care, scientific research, and education. It is recognized by the National Clinical Research Center for Child Health and the National Children's Regional Medical Center.
The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine
Beds
Highest number of routine blood tests performed daily
Constructed area
The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, which is one of the top children's hospitals in China, has devoted much efforts to leading the development of pediatrics and protecting the lives and health of children. This hospital serves a large number of pediatric patients every day, and it also assumes the testing needs for children with major and difficult diseases.
Shu Qiang, Secretary of the Party Committee of The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said that the Department of Clinical Laboratory is very important to The Children's Hospital: “This is because we often encounter certain urgent situations, such as children having acute diarrhea, fever, etc., where we need the Clinical Laboratory Department to assist doctors in making clear diagnoses. We attach great importance to the establishment of the Clinical Laboratory Department, including its instruments and equipment, staff deployment, etc., as well as the development of the Clinical Laboratory Department.”
Receiving Test Reports Earlier
The Clinical Laboratory Department of The Children's Hospital is very different from those in the adult hospitals. Infectious diseases are a permanent theme of pediatrics, so a large part of the daily work of the laboratory staff is in conducting routine blood tests. Compared with the clearly visible veins in adults, it is very difficult to draw blood from the veins of children, especially for infants aged 3 - 6 months old. Furthermore, children usually demonstrate a low level of cooperation during venous blood draws, hence peripheral blood becomes an important choice for the Clinical Laboratory Department for the quick completion of blood collection.
Venous blood collection
Peripheral blood collection
To pediatric laboratory staff, more often than not, completing a blood draw is easy but conducting the blood test procedure is difficult for peripheral blood tests. In order to obtain accurate results, peripheral blood samples must be left to stand and then mixed well, before being placed on the machine for testing. Manual operations are time-consuming and laborious, and the operating staff’s mixing action and sample injection method may cause fluctuations in the test results. At its peak during the early days, the laboratory of The Children's Hospital was faced with the dual pressure of testing quality and speed.
In order to provide more accurate testing for pediatric patients and reduce the report waiting time for parents, the Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine has carried out upgrades in automation of the laboratory. After the introduction of Mindray’s CAL 7000 Hematology Analysis Line, the laboratory is able to complete the testing of venous blood and peripheral blood on a single instrument, and realize an automated peripheral blood testing protocol covering the entire workflow. These standardized biological mixing, automated sample injection, testing and re-testing technologies have significantly improved the testing quality and operational efficiency of the laboratory.
Laboratory Staff Operations Line of The Children’s Hospital
Zhejiang University School of Medicine
After the level of automation was improved, the number of staff required to perform blood tests was reduced by half and the work intensity of the staff has been greatly eased. The release of manpower has created conditions for further improvement in testing quality, and parents of pediatric patients are able to obtain more accurate test reports in a shorter time.
Comparison of Laboratory Work Situation
1+1+1>3
In the face of infectious diseases in children, another major problem faced by the Clinical Laboratory Department is in helping doctors distinguish different types of infections quickly and accurately. The pathogens that cause infections in children are usually viruses or bacteria. These two infections are completely different in clinical treatment, but they often have similar manifestations in clinical symptoms. Therefore, the differential diagnosis between bacterial and viral infections through tests is crucial for clinicians to adopt targeted treatment methods to optimize the treatment results in pediatric patients. The first step to faster and more accurate differential diagnosis is to make the settings of the test items more reasonable. At present, the early detection of infection and the reduction of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis of infectious diseases in children can be achieved through the determination of multiple indicators of routine blood test + CRP + SAA.
For Mindray’s BC-7500CS Auto Hematology Analyzer, only a small amount of peripheral blood is required for the three items of routine blood test + CRP + SAA, which reduces the pain of blood collection for children and does not add to the burden of parents in terms of report waiting time; furthermore, it provides valuable information for clinical decision-making, constituting a basis for rapid diagnosis of viral infection.
Director of Clinical Laboratory Center, The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine
Industry-Academia Research Collaboration to Establish Pediatric Standards
Pediatrics is very special, and the types of diseases and causes of disease are very different from those of adults. In the face of uncertain factors in the clinical treatment process, The Children’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine is actively cooperating with associations and enterprises to hold conferences and projects related to testing standards for children, and carrying out industry-academia research collaborations. Shu Qiang, Secretary of the Party Committee of The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said, “The testing standards for children are inseparable from multicenter clinical studies, and the acquisition of more standardized test data on a larger scale plays an important role in promoting the establishment of pediatric testing standards.”
By gathering research data and accumulating clinical experience and technological innovation from industry-academia medical research collaborations, and applying the results in clinical practice, the accuracy of detection of common and frequently-occurring diseases in children can be further improved. With engineering capabilities and innovative R&D capabilities as its foundation, Mindray actively collaborates with hospitals and enterprises, pays high attention to clinical research and development, and participates in CRP multicenter studies to promote the standardization of pediatrics.
At Mindray, we believe that technological innovation, automation, and workflow optimization will help hospitals provide faster and more accurate test responses. We look forward to working with more children's hospitals to not only equip them with new weapons for “scouts”, but also provide a set of “combat plans”, including discipline development, laboratory management, etc., to protect children's health together with healthcare workers at large.