Optimize maintenance to maximize instrument performance

1. Analyzers are only useful when providing reliable results, so do not forget about maintaining your instruments. Although ensuring the performance of all instruments, regular maintenance is even more important with a 5-part hematology analyzer compared with a 3-part analyzer. A 5-part analyzer is equipped with laser optical module and more fluidic components to enable accurate and precise results from the more complex system. The higher the workload, the more frequent the maintenance requirements. Make sure to adhere to recommended maintenance schedules to ensure good performance of your analyzer. It can also be good to sign a service agreement to ensure that the analyzer is periodically subjected to preventive maintenance by an authorized service engineer.
2. A hematology system comprises the analyzer and the reagents that are required for its operation. The reagents and cleaners are specially designed for the specific analyzer, and the quality of the results can therefore only be ensured by using the intended consumables. Good laboratory practice also dictates to monitor instrument performance by running daily quality controls to ensure that the system performs accurately and delivers quality controlled hematology results.
3. Automated hematology analyzers have the capacity to store up to 100,000 samples. However, storage of a large number of samples with associate histograms and scatter grams can slow the instruments software. It is therefore good to routinely clear the memory to make the software run faster and smoother. Export all sample results to a data management system, such as a LIS or HIS, and purge the instrument storage from all data on a weekly or monthly basis depending on the workload

Learn more about hematology analyzers and the difference between 3-part and 5-part systems