National Laboratory Week-Veterans Memorial Hospital Lab Advances with New Technology in Hematology

April 21-25 is National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week.  The VMH Lab is truly on the cutting edge of technology.  The Lab recently purchased a new Hematology analyzer.  Hematology is the study of blood cells and components. The most common Hematology test is the Complete Blood Count (CBC). The CBC measures total white blood cells (WBC), red blood cells (RBC), platelets, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and RBC indices (MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW). RBC indices are used to indicate RBC average size, variation in size, and hemoglobin capacity/concentration.  A WBC differential, often referred to as a “Diff” is also commonly ordered. A Diff provides a count of each of the 5 different white blood cells: neutrophil, lymphocyte, monocyte, basophil and eosinophil.

The new VMH Hematology analyzer performs all of the testing above, plus more. It also counts the number of immature WBCs, which can be an early indicator of infection or blood disease. Additionally, it has the capability of performing WBC and RBC counts on various body fluid samples such as spinal fluid. Prior to this instrument, lab techs at VMH would perform manual cell counts on spinal fluid samples at the microscope, which is very time consuming. Spinal fluid collection is uncommon and is only done when meningitis and/or encephalitis are suspected, both very serious conditions where it is very important to be able to perform testing as rapidly as possible.

This fall, VMH will acquire an additional Hematology instrument that performs other testing currently done manually by a lab tech at a microscope, like WBC Diffs, RBC morphology reviews, and other cell identifications.  The Cellavision is an automated digital cell imaging system that will not only improve testing turnaround time, it will increase consistency with results. This analyzer has the capability of storing cell images indefinitely and allows images to be shared with Hematology Pathologists at Emplify Heath in La Crosse, or beyond, resulting in faster diagnoses of blood diseases such as leukemia, sickle cell disease, and parasitic infections.

With only 8000 analyzers in use worldwide so far, VMH Lab is truly on the cutting edge of technology!   For questions, please call our Laboratory at 563-568-3411.

By Caty Bruening, Laboratory Manager