Blood gas testing made safer

The system, called 1st automatic, consists of three elements: the prebarcoded safePICO blood sampler, the ABL800 Flex blood gas analyser with a sampler queue module and the Flexlink software. With the Flexlink software, operators can scan or enter their ID, the pre-barcoded safePICO sampler and the patient ID. The software links together and stores these three critical identifiers, right at the bedside, reducing the risk of incorrect sample and patient identification. Once the sampler is placed on the ABL800 Flex analyser’s queue module, the analyser “recognises” the unique sampler barcode and retrieves all information associated with it. Because they are fully automated, 1st automatic blood gas measurements are also faster and less error-prone. Up to three samplers can be placed on the analyser’s queue module. Once identified, each sample is automatically mixed and measured and the correctly identified result is then made available to caregivers on their platform of choice, e.g. PDAs, patient monitors, information systems or the analyser itself.