Check cells

[Mabel Adams]

Does any Meditech user have a calculation for tube antibody screens that includes requirements for appropriate use of check cells, strength of check cells, making sure it doesn't get entered with a neg interpretation when it is actually positive etc.? I have found calculations that do some of these things but none that makes it idiot-proof like I would like.

[Advertisement]

[MACWHC]

We are going live next month and tried for a very long time do just what you are asking. We finally decided that this would be an area that we couldn't apply "technology" to. There were too many variable to get it to work which is why I think you can't find a pre-defined calculation.

[rrcc1974]

We just have the Result Code "0/NEG" for the check cells set for Hi/Lo: L and the Cnfm: Y and the Rpt: Y. For the Meditech ABS type test you can have only "P" or "N" set as abs interp in the calculations, not "I" for invalid, therefore a calculation couldn't be built. At least it's beyond my skills.

[rrcc1974]

I have not tried this one out.

[emc]

It is difficult, but not impossible to get a calculation for check cells results for tube testing in Meditech. You need to restrict your check cell results to not include "negative" as a valid result and have a calculation that looks at both the screen cell AHG result and the check cell result to determine whether or not the antibody screen result is negative or positive.

I have my check cells results restricted to only positive (1+,2+ etc). "0" is not in the restricted results. The system will not accept a negative result. I have a second calculation that triggers an error message when my screen cell result is negative and check cells are not performed. The calculation for the check cells is written for each screening cell (we use a 3 cell screen) .

The basic logic is if the antibody screen cell result at AHG is negative and the check cell result does not equal positive, then remove the check cell result and do not interpret the antibody screen.

ex. SC1 is negative at AHG,- if negative is entered for the cell result for that screen cell, the system won't take the result and if the check cell result is left blank or recorded as "not done", then an error message is triggered that the check result is incorrect and needs to be reviewed and the antibody screen interpretation can't occur.

It took months of work with Meditech to get these calculations.