Blood culture system

The blood culture analyzers to be procured must be compatible with the hardware components and software of the blood culture analyzers from BD already present in the institute. In the event of an acute equipment failure, this will ensure the uninterrupted continuation of urgent microbiological diagnostics until the necessary repair measures are completed. Furthermore, the compatibility of the devices, including the consumables and reagents used, is an essential prerequisite for the economical operation of the systems. Purchasing a device from another manufacturer would require operating additional software in parallel. In addition, blood culture bottles from another manufacturer would have to be used and integrated into the diagnostic process. This would significantly increase the training effort for both senders in the wards and laboratory personnel and would disrupt established workflows. The differences in operation and especially in software application between the already existing BD blood culture analyzers and devices from another manufacturer would cause a considerable additional training requirement and could lead to delays in processing examination orders. This would contradict the principles of resource conservation and efficient work organization. For microbiological diagnostics, the comparability of the generated data, especially the time to positivity of blood culture samples, is also of essential importance. The parallel operation of two different systems with diverging workflows would also significantly increase the effort for quality management. This would be both time- and cost-intensive and would lead to a noticeable impairment of diagnostic performance. Second phase: Replacement procurement Two years after the capacity expansion through the procurement of two further BD BACTECTM FX STACK blood culture analyzers, a replacement procurement is planned. This is necessary on the one hand because the three currently existing blood culture analyzers, which were installed and put into operation in 2011, will have reached the end of their technical service life by then. The then total of five BD BACTECTM FX STACK systems are to be replaced by two BD BACTECTM FXI 960 systems. The total capacity for holding blood culture bottles will remain essentially unchanged. On the other hand, the currently used EpiCenter software will no longer be supported from 2029, according to the manufacturer's announcement, and cannot be used thereafter. It is to be replaced by the new software generation BD SynapsysTM. As part of the second phase, planned for two years after the capacity expansion, the BD SynapsysTM software will be provided together with the two new BD BACTECTM FXI 960 systems.