Improving blood culture sampling safety and efficiency

While clinical laboratories continue to manage the risk of needlestick injuries through staff training and process improvements, there’s plenty of innovation also underway in the development of specialized products to reduce sharps injuries in the lab.

ITL BioMedical is one such company developing products tailored to the needs of the clinical laboratory market – developing and manufacturing products to enhance safety and efficiency for specialized lab processes.

The Australian based company specialises in developing products designed to improve the safety and efficiency for lab staff involved in sample and transfer procedures with blood culture bottles.

Needlestick injuries continue to be a prime concern of all lab staff and front line healthcare workers. More than 385,000 US healthcare workers sustain needlestick injuries each year, according to the United States Department of Labour, Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s report on Healthcare Wide Hazards on Needlestick/Sharps Injuries.

Setting a new standard in blood culture sampling safety and efficiency

ITL BioMedical has developed a portfolio of products specifically tailored to the needs of the clinical laboratory market.

Specifically, the products have been designed to make blood culture testing and sample transfer easy and safe with a versatile range of high-quality, yet cost-effective laboratory supplies.

These devices have been designed to make the procedure more efficient, while reducing the risk of needlestick injury and exposure to positive patient samples.

ITL BioMedical’s blood culture sampling product range is setting the standard in workplace safety, efficiency and reliability.

Three product ranges tailored to support blood culture sampling

ITL BioMedical has developed three product families tailored to the needs of blood culture sampling. These include:

• the SampLok Adapter Cap portfolio (which includes SampLok Adapter Cap, SampLok Adapter Cap 2 and SampLok Adapter Cap 3)
• the Safety Subculture Unit portfolio (including Safety Subculture Unit and Safety Subculture Unit 2) and
• Transfer Cap Set

All three product ranges support safer blood culture sampling and are designed to set a new standard in workplace safety, efficiency and reliability.

SampLok Adapter Cap 3: Making sample collection safer and easier

SampLok® Adapter Cap 3 is a compact safety cap that enables safe blood sample collection into culture bottles and vacuum test tubes.

Easy to handle while inserting, filling and removing culture bottles and vacuum tubes, this adapter cap attaches with blood collection and winged needle sets. Its flexible design also fits with a variety of culture bottles and vacuum test tubes; and the cap ensures the sampling needle is well positioned on the culture bottle septum and vacuum tube cap.

Safety SubCulture Unit 2: Providing a safer way to transfer samples from blood culture bottles

Safety SubCulture Unit 2 (SCU2) is a needleless safety device that enables the needleless transfer of samples from positive blood culture bottles to slides and media plates – reducing the risk of needlestick injuries.

SCU2 fits securely onto the range of different sized culture bottles on the market today. In addition to being a needless device, t includes a protective cap over the dispensing tip which captures gas and culture discharge, further reducing potential exposure to positive organisms.  The needleless plastic dispensing tip makes it safe and easy to dispense samples onto slides and plates.

Transfer Cap Set: Reducing blood culture exposure during sample transfer

The Transfer Cap Set enables the safe and efficient sample transfer from culture bottle to vacuum tube. This enables a fully-contained sample transfer which reduces the risk of exposure to positive blood-culture samples; it’s also easy to insert and remove from culture bottles.

This all-in-one needleless solution is designed to perfectly suit laboratories with automated culture plate streaker systems.

Enabling safer, more reliable and efficient workplace practices

ITL BioMedical continues to develop its portfolio of products within the global blood culture testing market – enabling safer, more reliable and efficient workplace practices.

It manufactures medical devices and in-vitro diagnostic ancillaries for the clinical, blood banking and laboratory markets, and specialty ancillary products for the blood culture testing market, which are sold in more than 55 countries.

ITL BioMedical will be showcasing its products for blood culture sampling at the Clinical Lab Expo during the AACC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, from August 4-8. Visit us (at booth #2451) to learn more about our products and to receive product samples for you to trial in your own lab.

If you’d like to receive samples in advance of AACC, or if you’re not able to attend this year’s meeting, you can request your samples directly from ITL BioMedical here.