DCA Vantage

I believe it's only waived for the A1C. Microalbumin/creatine ratio to my knowledge is moderate.  I was looking at adding this device a few months ago and was told this info by the vendor.  We did not go this direction since the clinic has no one qualified to oversee moderate complexity.

One of our outpatient offices uses the DCA Vantage for A1Cs.  It is waived for A1C testing and seems pretty user friendly.  I haven't receive any complaints from staff using the instrument.  Testing takes about 6 minutes and only requires 1 uL of blood.  I am unfortunately not familiar with the microalbumin testing on the DCA Vantage.

Thanks Sarah, I confirmed w/tech support.....still moderate.

Alexis, do you know if any patient comparisons for A1c were done before it was put into use or did they just calibrate and run qc?

I looked at DCA Vantage >10 years ago and did patient comparisons with a local reference lab and it compared very  well.  The project got scrapped ultimately, but I saw no issues with analytical precision and accuracy, per se.  You can contact me if you would like the data.  I do seem to remember that it lacked some of the lockouts I prefer in a POC device, but I don't think they were dealbreakers.  Interestingly, just today, one of my sister hospitals is actually looking at starting the DCA Vantage and I sent them my study data.

Cindy, these instruments were put into place before I came along so unfortunately I'm not sure. 

We use the DCA in our Endocrine clinics and have for over 20 years.  They are work horses and usually don't give us any issues.  We only do A1Cs and have them connected to Telcor with operator and QC lockout.

I have also done comparison with the POC DCA Vantages and the main lab D10 and the results compared very well. 

We've had a DCA in a geriatric heavy primary care practice for about 3 years.  MA/RN staff performing testing.  Works really well!  Easy to follow instructions and maintenance is minimal.  I personally perform the cassette holder & optical cleaning once/year.   I also did a validation study with main lab Tosho 8.0.  Excellent correlations.  I try to run one CAP survey/year after the main lab submission date.  Both times the results were spot.
We are looking at putting another one in another primary care.

Thanks everyone for the great responses for the DCA Vantage!! :)