By Maria Ali-Khan, MT (ASCP), St. Anthony’s Medical Center

St. Anthony’s Medical Center is a 767-bed tertiary care facility located in St. Louis, Missouri. I came to the laboratory at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in 2007, where I found a group of bright and eager technologists.

The lab needed a new AST/ID system, so I initiated a search to see what was available. Based on prior experience – and having used two of the available systems – I limited my search to two potential candidates. In comparing the two systems, based on user feedback and literature search, it soon became apparent that the Sensititre ARIS 2X System would be a better fit for the needs of St. Anthony’s Medical Center.

I then made a list of concerns and issues, including:

• How difficult will it be to expand/upgrade in the future?
• Will we be able to respond to the ever-increasing bacterial resistance patterns, each of which requires a different strategy for detection?
• How easy is this system to use?
• What are its yeast susceptibility capabilities?
• How much off-line testing is required?
• How responsive is your customer service?

The TREK sales team presented its solutions to me, and put me in contact with the technical staff to answer all of my detailed questions. They promised me a system that would deliver complete results to clinicians overnight.

My first priority was to convince the technologists that this would be a positive change for them. Initially, my staff members did not think that they were going to like the change. However, they were soon impressed with the absence of problems once we implemented the Sensititre equipment and test methods.

Previously, we had an early shift, from 6 to 7 a.m., to sort through the ID and susceptibility reports and select all of the isolates that would require repeat testing or further confirmatory testing. That process has been completely eliminated. We no longer drop disks and strips that hold up results and require manual data input. Our LIS now receives results based on the Expert Rules that we easily manage in the SWIN software.

There was a notable increase in physician satisfaction as a result of the wider range of antibiotics tested, the wider range of organisms with susceptibility results, greater timeliness and accuracy of results, and the ability to tailor reported antimicrobials tested to the formulary. The physicians were impressed with our increased ability to detect KPCs (due to our association with a long term care facility), which, previously, had gone undetected.

“The physicians were also impressed with our increased ability to detect KPC’s, which previously had gone undetected.”

We are using standard Sensititre MIC plate formats, including the newest Gram positive format with D-Test and Cefoxitin screen (Part No. GPALL1F), and have added custom three-isolate plates for urinary isolates that better suit our outpatient formulary guidelines. I don’t believe any of the other AST/ID vendors would have been able to provide a custom product at our volumes, at the same price as other standard products.

Overall, I believe we made the absolute right decision in moving to the ARIS® 2X system. TREK’s support has provided us with the products and information that we have needed throughout the process. It has been a pleasure working with an organization that delivers what it promises.

TREK is pleased to have added St. Anthony’s Hospital to its growing list of Sensititre ARIS 2X customers. Talk to your Area Account Manager today about the ARIS 2X and the impact it can have on your laboratory’s AST/ID results, clinican satisfaction, and ultimately, patient care.