By Dr. Alexis Galvan, Clinic Laboratory Chief, Hospital General Texcoco, Mexico

The Hospital General Texcoco initiated operations in February of 2004. We were committed to attending to a population of about 200,000 inhabitants with a 180 bed hospital, including a 10 bed ICU facility.

Texcoco is a city in Mexico State, Mexico, located to the east of Mexico City at 19.52° N, 98.88° W. The city stands at about 2,250 meters above sea level. The population is about 200,000 people.

At the beginning of operations, we faced a large list of nosocomial infections due to a lack of Microbiology personnel training. The manual tests were run using the Kirby-Bauer Method. Since the acquisition of the Sensititre® System our problems have substantially decreased. This is because we now perform our work with a system that meets international standards. This has allowed us to rationalize the inter-hospital antibiotic use, diminishing our inter-hospital infection rates and time reduction of the patients staying at our hospital facilities.

TREK Diagnostic Systems developed two plates specifically for Mexico. These are the Gram-positive and Gramnegative combination plates (the plate includes identification and susceptibility.)

Currently the acceptance of MICs has become more prevalent among our medical staff. Infectious disease doctors work closely with our clinic and laboratory facilities. In other words, we have become more interdisciplinary. One of the biggest benefits that this system has contributed to is that the combo panels can be designed in accordance to our needs which has been a very important achievement.

We are very satisfied and happy with the results currently achieved, which have been validated by internal and external quality assurance controls, and have been acknowledged within our hospital.