Bones
New Member
Posts: 29
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Post by Bones on Aug 21, 2023 18:18:42 GMT
So in the beginning of the year, we switched our lab company over to Ascend Labs. I've been... less than thrilled with their performance. It was sloppy and haphazard starting off. Things began to slowly cool down the next couple months. Then.... the summer hit. Clinics across the country are experiencing high colony count and endotoxin results. What is troubling is that its coming not only clinics whom have had routine water issues, but clinics with no known water issues as well. Was wondering if y'all are also seeing this trend in your respective companies.
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Post by Chuck Weddle on Aug 21, 2023 21:04:35 GMT
We've used Ascend for quite a few years now and it seems like we tend to have more elevated colony counts every summer. My guess is that the cold packs don't keep the samples cold enough but, the lab supposedly verifies their temperatures.
The biggest problem I've been having for the last 2 months is not receiving the text alerts for elevated results until 22 - 25 hours after the results are recorded and on some occasions I don't get them at all.
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Post by Stephen on Aug 22, 2023 14:33:10 GMT
Are you just having issues with Water or also with Dialysate samples? If you are having issues with the dialysate samples as well then it may be an issue with the lab. If not it could be the summer bloom or like you mentioned issues with the Ice packs. Try asking the lap if Dry Ice can be used as a substitute. Also take the same samples and do a test run with a different Lab. I've had the best results from Spectra Lab.
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Bones
New Member
Posts: 29
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Post by Bones on Aug 22, 2023 17:06:14 GMT
We've used Ascend for quite a few years now and it seems like we tend to have more elevated colony counts every summer. My guess is that the cold packs don't keep the samples cold enough but, the lab supposedly verifies their temperatures. The biggest problem I've been having for the last 2 months is not receiving the text alerts for elevated results until 22 - 25 hours after the results are recorded and on some occasions I don't get them at all. Luckily I haven't experienced issues with receiving alerts. Biggest annoyance honestly is the fact they are on the west coast and were on the East Coast. Good to know about elevated colony counts during the summer. Thinking the heat is playing a major role with samples at the moment. We were initially told to throw all labs including clinical together. Then it was a separate bag in the same box. Now we send them in our own box but they wanted us to use the small containers with the even smaller ice packs. We're just throwing everything in Medium boxes with regular size ice packs to help try to mitigate the temperature issues. Gotta figure that FedEx truck is hot. Going to the airport.. hot. On the tarmac... hot. Y'all get my point. Its hot. Can't imagine what the temps of the labs could possibly be after a certain amount of time... But I think an experiment is in order. |
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Bones
New Member
Posts: 29
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Post by Bones on Aug 22, 2023 17:07:43 GMT
Are you just having issues with Water or also with Dialysate samples? If you are having issues with the dialysate samples as well then it may be an issue with the lab. If not it could be the summer bloom or like you mentioned issues with the Ice packs. Try asking the lap if Dry Ice can be used as a substitute. Also take the same samples and do a test run with a different Lab. I've had the best results from Spectra Lab. Luckily no Dialysate sample issues.. yet. I doubt ascend would allow us to use Dry Ice.. they are pretty stingy on supplies as is. We use to have Spectra Labs... I would give anything to get them back. |
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Post by Chuck Weddle on Aug 22, 2023 18:31:15 GMT
I would think dry ice would freeze the samples.
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