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Cepheid
Editorial Team
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September 11, 2024
TECH AND DISEASE TRENDS
Impact Story
POC Testing Increases Efficiency of Patient Management in the ED
The Caritas Hospital St. Josef Regensburg, Germany successfully implemented point-of-care testing for infectious diseases with the Cepheid GeneXpert® system in its Emergency Department (ED), reducing the turnaround times for results from an average of 4 hours – or up to 48 hours on weekends – to around 1 hour. This has helped the hospital to decrease the length of time that patients need to stay in the ED, avoiding unnecessary isolation measures and reducing overall costs.
For patients requiring admission who are suspected of having an infection that requires isolation – such as respiratory infections, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection, norovirus or Clostridium difficile – a sample is taken in the ED, then the sample is sent to an external lab. While waiting for these PCR results – which would take 4 hours on a weekday, and up to 48 hours on weekends – patients would be preemptively isolated in the emergency ward. This previously resulted in needless isolation, and even bed closures if no single rooms were available.
The Caritas Hospital St. Josef Regensburg needed a precise, fast, and easy-to-use method for the detection of infectious diseases that required isolation, to shorten the length of patients’ stay in the ED, avoid unnecessary isolations and bed closures, and prevent transmission to other patients and staff.
The ED at Caritas Hospital St. Josef, together with the hospital management and the external lab, decided to implement point-of-care testing to reduce waiting times and allow faster diagnosis of infectious diseases. The hospital chose the GeneXpert system to enable trained nurses to take samples and run PCR testing on-demand, and near to the patient.
According to the hospital testing guidelines, the nursing team now runs tests for respiratory viruses (SARS-CoV-2, flu and RSV), as well as common healthcare-associated infections (MRSA, C. difficile and norovirus), before admission. Using the point-of-care testing approach, the hospital has significantly reduced the turnaround time for results to approximately 1 hour, shortening the length of time that patients need to stay in the ED, ensuring early appropriate isolation of positive patients and, ultimately, generating cost savings.
Reference: Customer Interview
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