Northumbria awards Olympus pathology contract

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has awarded Olympus UK a seven-year managed service contract for core pathology.

Olympus has been looking after the systems at Northumbria’s biochemistry lab for the past seven years and the trust says the “quality and accuracy” of its systems played a “significant role” in its decision to offer the company a seven year managed service deal.

The contract, which will cover all analysers and the IT systems behind them, is the first to include the AU30001 immunoassay system. This has been subject to an 18-month evaluation at North Tyneside General Hospital, which has shown that it can run 240 tests an hour.

“The go live has been smooth and the analytical performance in terms of sensitivity and accuracy outstanding,” said Ron Harris, laboratory manager for the trust.

Three AU3001 immunoassay systems are being installed at the trust’s three general hospitals – Hexham, Wansbeck and North Tyneside. These will help to automate some processes, “improve the workflow throughout the lab and increase clinical testing capacity by 40%,” Olympus told E-Health Insider.

A spokeswoman for the trust said: “Essentially we are very hopeful that the new systems will be efficient and be able to provide us with patient test results more quickly.”

In addition, Olympus will install clinical chemistry analysers, OLA automatic sample handling workstations, PAW peri-analytical workstations and data wizard management systems.

The complete implementation of equipment and laboratory refurbishment will be phased over a six-month period across the three hospital sites.

Link: Olympus