Hi, I'm Diane Washbourne,
Clinical Specialist of Hematology for Sentara Health Care.
I'm a medical technologist with my specialty
in hematology.
Sentara started using the Alifax analyzers in 2017.
During our installation, application specialist came in and taught
key operators.
The key operators then taught the staff.
There was less than a half hour training session
because the analyzer is very user friendly, intuitive.
We just have not had any issues with training.
To do the correlation with the manual method.
It's a semi quantitative test and the understanding
that it's a different methodology.
The manual method you're actually measuring the settling
of the red cells with the automated, you're measuring with the rate
rouleaux is being formed, so it's not as 1 to 1.
What I did get was negative was negative, positive was positive.
Some of the positives 60 60 So some of the positives
manual method would be 60, the automated method would be 82.
So it was a little outside
the the norm if you were correlating creatinine
or hemoglobin, you wouldn't want to see that kind of difference.
But because it was semi quantitative and a totally different method
and I was getting abnormal to abnormal and normal to normal,
I felt that it was acceptable correlation
for the methodology.
The top three reasons I chose Alifax
for the Sed rate analyzer at Sentara.
Number one was it was automated it barcode the samples.
The second reason was it was interfaced.
There was no more transcribing of results
and manually entering them into the LIS.
The third reason was safety for my technologist.
They were now not opening a tube and having to possibly have an exposure.
Results in 20 seconds
independent of the patient's hematocrit.
They're no dilutions.
You have a direct EDTA tube sampling, temperature controlled.
No vibration or vertical alignment errors.
Automated mixing,
latex controls and calibrators are extremely stable with very low CVs,
high reproducibility.
And it's a walk away.
The Techs were so pleased with the introduction of this technology
and the difference it made in their workflow and with the quality of results.
I would highly recommend this analyzer
to other laboratories.