Roche in the UK is pleased to announce that it is providing a Point of Care (POC) Managed Laboratory Service (MLS) to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Trust and the Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust.

Via this revolutionary POC MLS agreement (one of the first of its kind in the UK) Roche is providing a new, fully connected POC glucose testing service across all three sites that will help the Trusts to meet new and on-going Clinical Pathology Accreditation (LTD) requirements with regards to POC glucose testing.

The managed service covers 185 wireless-enabled Accu-Chek® Inform II blood glucose meters, which will be located in four hospitals across the three sites in Liverpool. Connectivity to the laboratory information system (and ultimately to the hospital information systems) is achieved via wireless connection, using the powerful cobas IT1000 dedicated data management system. Information is transferred bi-directionally and automatically, allowing real-time availability of test results and a full audit trail.

Kath Ashton, POC Testing Manager for the Blood Sciences Department at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, has responsibility for the management of the new blood glucose testing service. "Previously, we used handheld glucose meters with no connectivity," she explains. "Performing nearly half a million tests every year, monitoring internal quality control and external quality assessment of glucose testing was extremely labour intensive, involving bi-monthly audits on each instrument. Our managed service agreement with Roche has allowed us to upgrade our meters to have full connectivity, so that audit trails are now provided automatically - from the requesting of tests to the reporting of results, including user identification and training status, patient identification, internal quality control and external quality control results."

"Wireless connectivity will remove the potential risk of transcription errors in the reporting of results," Kath continues, "and allows me to monitor the quality control status of each instrument centrally. This saves significant costs in terms of time and effort. In addition to meeting all Wi-Fi security capability standards, Roche as part of the agreement also provides excellent training and service support, which is essential for the size of our project. We are able to keep an up-to-date training record of all users, and the cobas Academy re-certification E-learning package for on-going training updates will reduce the need for training workshops away from the clinical area, which are time consuming and difficult to coordinate."

As part of the Managed Laboratory Service agreement, fixed monthly or quarterly budgets are agreed based on an expected workload. In return, the Trusts receive guaranteed service levels, system upgrades and full service support. "The Managed Service will make it far easier for us to budget for the glucose testing service over the length of the contract," Kath concludes. "This is very much a partnership between the Trusts and Roche - we're working together to achieve a smooth transition to an upgraded state-of-the art system that will allow us to ensure a safe, efficient and reliable service for our patients."

For further information about the Professional Blood Glucose products as part of the industries most comprehensive POC testing equipment portfolio together with our tailored Managed Service Solutions, please contact your local Roche Hospital Specialist or alternatively telephone direct on +44 (0)1444 256000

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalised healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients.

In 2008, Roche had over 80,000 employees worldwide and invested almost 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 45.6 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com.

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