Blood Gas/Chem POC devices

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Hey All, 
What are your preferences for POC blood gas/chemistry analyzers? How do you manage reduced portability of things like GEMS or ABLs in busy EDs or part of Rapid Responses? Are there handheld options outside of iSTAT or EPOC?

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My system has both options in the ED: Epocs and Nova Prime Plus analyzers (very similar to the GEMs or ABLs).  Why:  the Prime Plus inicludes coox, the RT's wanted a portable system.
Usage between the two different systems in the EDs is entirely up to the user's choice.

The largest ER we have predominately uses the Prime Plus.  Why: despite the portability of the Epoc the majority of the RT's prefer to walk their specimens back to the RT station and run the testing on the Prime because its faster and easier to use than the Epoc.   Other locations perfer to walk around with the Epoc and use it, it's all user preference.
The Epoc is more "forgiving" with its single use cartridges, if a user performs a test with clots... it will not impact the next test.  The GEM/ABL/Prime Plus are closer to a "lab analyzers" and require all samples to be anticoagulated.  The Prime Plus will very frequently run non-anticoagulated samples without a problem initially but hours later will have problems (micro clots in the lines).  I expect this to be true for the GEMs and ABL's as well.





We use the EPOC in our ED and for CODE/Rapid Response situations as well as our NICU and PICU units. We do have ABL-90s on site in our RT department as well but they are strictly operated by our Respiratory therapy team and are only set up to run blood gases. Our ORs and CATH labs utilize iSTAT and AVOX devices. With the test volumes that we experience in those areas, the handheld devices are easier for our teams. 

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Kristine Zinn
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