Describes the loading of reagents onto the STA Compact.

Other videos in this series: changing cleaning solution bottles, and changing the cuvette wheel.

Transcription of STA Compact Operations: Loading Reagents

Welcome back to Bio Med Buddy. We're going to start running the STA Compact Series. Essentially what this series is designed to do; is simply make the operator familiar with how to get the unit to run a sample. We are going to be covering, loading reagents, loading samples, changing the cuvette wheel, and changing the cleaning solution bottles.

Okay let's start with loading reagents. I'm starting with this screen and it says to hit continue so I'm going to hit enter. And the first screen that comes up is Desorb Solution for cleaning the needles I'm missing. It essentially says there is no Desorb on the system.

(Slide, :59)

There are two ways to open the Product Drawer to load reagents. One is to hit the F2 key. The second is use dos “ESC / Loading / Products”

So I'm going to hit escape and there are two ways of loading our reagent on, one is through the keyboard and one is through the dos applications which we explained in our previous session. I'm used to using the dos so I'm going to hit escape, go over to loading, hit enter. And this is product, so I'm going to hit enter and open the product drawer.

This is my DESORB bottle, you can see it has a barcode label right here. That needs to run in parallel with the barcode reader. I simply scan it in, and it goes onto the screen. Now it's asking for a volume. I have 15 milliliters in here, so if 15 is correct we're going to hit enter. And then I am going to drop the DESORB into the perspective well. For demonstration purposes I'm going to hold off to show you what happens if you wait too long--it clears itself out. So it's going to make me redo it. Go in front, scan it in, hit enter for 15 milliliters and load the sample.

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Important: Remove the red Stopper on all reagents.

For demonstration again, since I've wiggled the bottle a little in it, it wants me to verify the position of the last vial I ordered on enter; is it correct at 28. It is 28 so I am going to hit yes, it is correct. And then as you can see it loaded the DESORB into the system.

I'm going to hit quit, yes, and this is more to show you what is needed and how to load it and more than that I don't know what the next step is. On the screen which is from this test status, shows you first of all, the test that we are requesting to be run. This is from the previous usage with somebody requested a PT to be run, a FIBRINOGEN to be run and an AT III to be run, the calibrations and the quality control.

As you can see it says it's running, but nothing is running, it's just lying to you. The reason why it's not running is because the reagent isn't loaded for those tests, which you can see on the left-hand side.

(Slide 3:33)

Listed under the products column, Items in red will have to be loaded to run the tests listed.

To be able to run quality control it needs to have the quality control, and it needs to have the OWREN-KOLLER buffer. It needs to have UNICALIB for the AT III. It needs to have NEOPLASTIN for the PT. FIBRINOGEN—TROMBOTINE two to reagents for the TROMBOTINE--and a system end control. As you can see DESORB which we just installed is in blue; that's satisfied.

So now we're going to try to satisfy the rest. There are a couple of things I'm going to point out, first we're going to load our PT reagent. And I'm going back to the main menu first and I'm going to go--and for demonstration purposes more than anything--I am going to hit setup and I'm going to hit TEST. To do a PT test I want to know what reagents I need to load onto that.

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The “TEST SETUP” menu shows a list of tests you have programmed to run. From here is where you get all of the test information.

You're going to see a PT test here, PT, and if you scroll down through here you're going to see a PT plus. They are different, different reagents. I know I want to run just a PT. So I want to know what reagent specifically do I want for that unit. So I'm going to hit enter. For that I know that I need to know that I need OWREN-KOLLER Buffer, I need NEO CI. I can actually go down to my ID number, ID 12300, and my ID is going to be right on the bottle; 12300, so know I need that reagent. So I have OWREN-KOLLER Buffer, and I have PT reagent; that's two that I need. But what else do I need? I'm going to hit, I don't want to quit, I'm going to go to the next page, page down, and it says in here for the calibrations I need 12354, 12355. And I'm going to page down again and you're going to see the same for quality control I will need 12354, 12355.

So let's go over to my quality control. Here is my quality control and right there it says, 12354, and my other quality control--of course you may not be able to see these--right on the side is 12355. So to run a PT test I know I need this NEOPLASTIN CI, OWREN-KOLLER Buffer, N material and P material. These are the four things I need to run that test.

If I do not have those four things on it that test is never going to run. So let's try loading them. We'll go quickly without saving, so we're not changing anything. So PT; this time I'm going to use the keyboard and I'm going to hit F2; and I'll escape first. I'm going to hit F2, my product order is going to open. It doesn't matter which one I load first, it will not allow you to set this up improperly. I'm going to load, and see, there's the barcode. I’m going to PT and reagent in. It wants 10, which this is, enter. I'm going to load it.

Now I'm going to load it in the wrong spot; I'm going to load it in the back, and it's going to tell me, oh, that's the wrong spot, it needs to go in a place that has a magnetic stir bar, which are the ones you can see on the keypad here, some of them have little swirl marks, which tells you which one to load it into, which I did. Now it wants me to hit enter, because it's 10.

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PT requires a stir bar be put into the bottle. This reagent is mixed while it is on the unit.

I'm going to put it in the right position this time, and it accepts it. So my PT was loaded. Now I sat there and said I needed OWREN-KOLLER Buffer; OWREN-KOLLER Buffer. The same thing--except just because for demonstration purposes I'm going to load it in here, product not listed, the reason being OWREN-KOLLER Buffer doesn't go into the product door.

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Owren-Koller buffer goes into the sample drawer.

So we're going to hit escape and we're going to hit quit, yes. I'm doing this, and this is not the order I would do it in; I'm just doing it as a demo just to show you some of the little issues you can run into. And I'm going to go into sample drawer, hit F1, the sample drawer opens. Scan it, and by the way the washing solution, we're going to go into that next because it wants washing solution. And this is Dilutat so we're going to hit F1. It's 15, so we're going to hit enter, and it wants you to loaded it, and that goes into the far back right-hand corner. And it loads it. That's all there is to it.

Now again I'm going to close the door, so I'm just going to hit escape. And me not being that familiar with the instrument I'm going to go and see what else do I need to run PT. I've got my DESORB for PT, I just know that I need an N and a P. So we're going to load this. That's product door, so I'm going to hit escape; again I'm doing it different ways. This by the way are tests delayed, retroactive; it's allowing you and it wants to know if you want to run tests as a reagent becomes available, or not. Hit escape; we're going to go over to loading. Now we're going to load the system control N, and what we're going to do is just reach over, barcode it in, and see it says one in there. We're going to be loading a cleaning solution next. Enter, and then drop it in.

Now we're going to load the key reagent, key reagent again, there is a number that correlated with that number than came off that other screen. We're going to scan it in, and look at the amount that's in it, and drop it in. Now as you can see we've got our PT reagent, NEOPLASTIN CI, DESORB, system control N, system control P. All right, normally I would continue, but I’ll load it again, because I'm trying to do this for demonstration, and that's what we're going to load next--or shortly I should say. But I want to run my FIBRINOGEN and my AT III. So next I am going to load my AT III, and I don't care what it runs. I'm going to go over to loading, hit enter, and these are all products so I'm going to hit enter. And right now I think you've got the general idea, so I am just going to enter the rest of my reagents that I want. Here is my PTT, which I'm for whatever reason I'm going to load that also, although that isn't on my list; scan it in, hit enter, and drop it in. It wants to know which vial and I'm going to say, no, it's not correct. We're going to try again. Barcode in, enter, load it; is 15 correct? Yes, it is. And the next one we're going to load is our FIBRINOGEN. Scan the FIBRINOGEN in, hit enter, and load it. There's your FIBRINOGEN. AT III, and there are two of them. AT III, scan it in, enter, and load it. The other AT III, scan it in, enter, and load it.

Okay, calcium chloride; scan it in, enter, and load it. Now I believe we have everything that we need on the instrument. Ah, it wants UNICALIB. It would run the other ones except for it won't run AT III, so let's add UNICALIB to the system. So product drawer, and the drawers open. I'm going to load it, enter, drop my reagent in. Now I have everything in it.

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No red stoppers in reagent bottles. If a cap is left on several things can happen. Bend your needles, clog your needles, fail to deliver reagent, and cause you a headache.

Make sure that you have not left any caps on. I'm looking in my drawer and I can see that my quality control still has caps. So I'm emphasizing, do not put any reagents on this with caps. I'm going to leave it on as this is only for demonstration purposes, and nothing should run. And since I've left my caps on it's probably taking those two reagents off, because you see no control in it, so I'm going to reload them, enter, yes. Oh, I'm messing this all up. This is a good example. I loaded a quality control that isn't in the system. What I need to do is I'm going to need to go and find the barcode sheet of that quality control and then I'm going to need to scan it in.

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Information needed to run tests can be typed in. Example: you can type in all information listed under each bar code..

And it doesn't matter how you do it, but that light has to hit each one of these barcodes. I usually one sheet, and so I can see the line behind it. But it doesn't matter which order; you do need to get it in.

Now this one it won't allow you to cheat the system. It's basically saying I used the wrong barcode sheet, which I did; again, for demonstration purposes. At this point I have all my reagents that I think I need loaded. So I'm going to hit escape, and quit? Yes, why not. No reds that's good. So now the system will run. But it still wants washing solution. We're going to hit escape, and if I was going to run a sample right now I would hit enter, escape, loading, samples. Right now I'm in a manual mode. If I was using LIS system I want to go to the auto mode, but because we don't have an auto mode set up here it's kind of a moot point, because it won't run. So we're going to go back to the manual mode. And I'm going to put in a system ID number, hit enter, and I'm going to load a sample. Now on that sample I want PT, PTT, and that's all I want for that sample. I'm going to hit F10 to validate, and I'm going to load another sample. First I'm going to type in my ID, and hit enter. So it tells me to load it, so I'm going to load one. And this time I'm going to go over to my profile just to show you what it is. I'm going to go to profile and see, it entered it automatically; F10 to validate.

Okay, there we are. Also we didn't go through this, but one of the things that catches people all the time is you'll see it running, and they will not have asked for quality control. This is the screen where you ask for quality control; they are yellow keys. See it wants quality control. It will also tell you a lot of times PT needs to have a reference time put in. This all should be done in setup, as general running it this doesn't play a factor. This is would already be set up in the instrument. But I'm pointing out that these are some of the common problems when you use new reagents. Thank you again for attending this session of Biomed Buddy on the Operation of the STA Compact.