Congratulations for your interventions during the medico-technical session of Carrefour Pathologie on archiving in ACP, this session was really very interesting. What did you retain from the different presentations concerning the archiving of blocks and slides apart from the one given by Mrs PETIT?
Prof. RIOUX-LECLERCQ: I was surprised to learn that there is no regulatory framework or consensus on the time for blocks and slides conservation:
Dr. Renaud BOUVET, head of the forensic and penitentiary medicine department of the CHU Rennes and Doctor of Law, demonstrated this during his presentation and invited pathology professionals to act in 2 ways: towards the legislator and the ministry by asking for a regulatory framework, and as scientists and CPA professionals by publishing recommendations and best practices on this subject.
Mrs. Maryline GONZALEZ, Quality Engineer at the University Hospital of Rouen, also presented the requirements of accreditation according to the ISO 15189 standard, concerning in particular the conservation of blocks and and slides. According to this standard, in the absence of regulations and recommendations, the laboratory must define a sample storage period that meets the needs of patients, the prescribers and the laboratory; I also noted the requirement of the standard regarding the premises in storage facilities: we must be able to prove that they are suitable for storing biological materials in terms of security, temperature, hygrometry and safety. And of course, according to the ISO 15189 standard, we must guarantee the traceability of blocks and slides, which is one of the points verified during verified during a COFRAC audit.
The last presentation was about the Medi group and its archiving strategy, particularly for blocks. This group represents 28 laboratories and manages 5500 blocks per day.
It has just equipped its Fréjus site with a Fina system for archiving blocks archiving of blocks and if the results are conclusive, this solution will be deployed on all sites, the objective being to save to save technician time and to stop losing blocks.
The automation of archiving seems to be an essential solution solution, whatever the laboratory!
Thank you for this information. To come back to your own experience of your own experience of automating and archiving of blocks and slides. How did you come to automate the archiving of your blocks and slides?
Ms. PETIT: In 2020, our activity amounted to 112,223 blocks, or about 440 blocks per day and 283,461 slides or about 1100 slides per day. We keep the blocks on site for 8 to 9 years and the slides 10 years, the rest of the blocks being stored at an external provider for 30 years due to lack of available space at the CHU.
Until 2018, the archiving of blocks and slides was manual, complex and time-consuming. Indeed, it was necessary to in numerical order. In addition, the process for returning of the slides varied according to the doctor and the slides could be returned to us on racks containing slides and blocks or even containing slides from different years, which made their storage even more complicated. A laboratory assistant position was totally dedicated to the archiving and retrieval of the blocks and slides.
The manual archiving of blocks and slides posed several problems: We were always late in storing and it was often difficult for us to find them, so we were forced to cancel the presentation of cases during staff meetings or to postpone staff meetings. The requests for retrieval were multiple and varied (external sending, staff staff, molecular biology, thesis…) which made their traceability even more complex. The psychological impact of the loss of blocks or slides was strong: these losses caused stress for the whole team, doctors, technicians and laboratory assistants, and even led to conflict situations, with the results being delayed. Finally, the spatial encumbrance due to the storage of blocks and slides in the laboratory was important.
Faced with these problems, our department decided to equip itself with automated archiving systems. We have acquired the Fina automaton in 2018 for blocks and the Crystal system in 2019 for the slides.
What benefits have you gained from the Fina and Crystal automated systems and how are you now organized for the archiving of your blocks and blocks and slides?
Mrs PETIT: The automated systems for archiving blocks Fina and Crysta automated block and slide archiving systems have brought us the following benefits:
- A considerable saving of time knowing that the random classification of blocks and slides facilitates their storage. We We have evaluated this time saving 0.5 FTE.
- A gain in traceability of the blocks and slides: we can easily find the blocks and slides and we no longer have any loss of them.
Each system is composed of a scanner, a PC and a PDA.
With the Fina system, the technicians place the blocks randomly after cutting onto a Fina drawer that can hold 240 blocks.The drawer is then scanned into the Fina system in only 2 minutes.
The slides are deposited by the physicians in the archiving room in racks and then placed on Crystal trays by the laboratory assistants.
Each Crystal tray can contain 240 slides and is scanned by the Crystal system in 5 minutes.
The laboratory assistants start the scanning of the Fina and Crystal trays and manage the archiving and retrieval of the blocks and slides Fina and Crystal scanners can recognize 2D codes from all types of printers. In our service, we identify cassettes and slides with printers printers PRINTMATE and SLIDEMATE of the supplier Epredia, formerly Thermo.
Unarchiving a block has become simple with the Fina system and fully traceable: the laboratory assistant logs into the Fina software, enters the ACP number and possibly the number of the number of the block to be retrieved, the name of the doctor requesting the block, and the reason of the request.
After validation, this information will be transferred to the PDA. It the PDA the number of the drawer or tray and the position of the required block to be able to go and get it.
On the Fina PC, it will be possible to visualize all the history of this block since the 1st scan. The procedure is the same for the search for slides with Crystal.
Finally, these systems require 2 prerequisites:
- Only 2D codes can be used to identify cassettes and slides.They must be clear and redeable.
- Secondly, all the 2D codes of the laboratory must be unified.
Secondly, all the 2D codes of the laboratory must be unified.
Secondly, all the 2D codes of the laboratory must be unified.
Pr. RIOUX-LECLERCQ: In conclusion, I would say that the Fina and Crystal systems are very simple to use, robust and reliable. They have allowed us to save a lot of time on archiving of blocks and slides and to have an excellent level of traceability. We no longer lose blocks or slides, which allows us to work more serenely.
Thank you for your testimonial, we are happy to have contributed to making your team more serene in its daily work!
