Istat Cal/Ver K3EDTA or K2EDTA

Hi Autilia, 
We use K2 on our DE Server.  

Yes we use K2.

I used to use K2 but then we were having correlation/accuracy issues with our Sysmex so we switched back to K3. There is an Abbott News bulletin out there that says to use the K2 or K3 calculation that best correlates with your primary instrument. 

I've been tossing this around for a while. I had the DE set to K3 and then I thought maybe it should correlate to the tubes the clinical lab is using for hct. Going to see if the K2 correlates better with the clinical lab hct measurements. Sometimes I run the heparin tubes on the Sysmex for an "unofficial" result just to see if it correlates. Thanks for bringing this up!

For our patient correlations, we have the green top for the ISTAT and then have the purple from the same patient for the Sysmex.  We used to run the greens on the Sysmex and it worked, but we decided it would be a better practice to run the specimen type that each analyzer is validated for as that would be what is required for actual patient testing.  Our purples are K2. 

We used to have the K2EDTA setting on our iSTATs however, it doesn't correlate well with our lab analyzer which is Beckman DXH 900. According to Abbott, the i-STAT customization setting is selected according to the calibration of the comparative hematology analyzer (MH-K2 EDTA or MH-K3 EDTA). I asked Beckman about the calibration but did not give me a specific answer, so I followed what Abbott recommended.

I ended up changing the setting to K3EDTA and it has been giving me good patient correlations. I found this in the Abbott news bulletin.
716240-00F.pdf