"Sir, the attitude is not speeding things up at all."
Today at work, I made an observation. A little background: my current rotation in the lab has me in charge of two machines. I run the Abbot Architect i, which does hormones and therapeutic drug monitoring, and the Ortho Vitros 5.2 which does all the chemistries and drugs of abuse. I also run the Vitros 5.1, but that is just a back-up machine to the Vitros 5.2. It can do the bit important things, but we have only calibrated it to run the things that we would absolutely need no matter what was happening with the 5.2 and forever long.
Every day, we have to run QC on all our machines. We have it analyze a specimen that we know the value of, and it has to be within a certain range of the value we know it to be. This morning, I was running the QC on the Abbot Architect, when low and behold, the FT4 (a thyroid hormone) readings were all over the board! Darn it! That means that 1) We can't run any FT4 until it's fixed and 2) We can't run anything on it at all while it's opened up and we're fiddling with the thing. We eventually had to replace the pipetting device. But when you do that, you have to run QC on the entire machine. Even the analytes that usually get their QC done by the night or evening shifts.
We were in the middle of this, and still running the chemistries on the Vitros (the majority of orders can be done with only the Vitros) when it starts throwing error codes! Turns out its reflectometer lamp was broken! That means that you have to shut the entire machine off so that you can power down the lamp, let it cool off (it can give you nice 2nd degree burns if you try to change it without letting it cool down), and then replace it. Then you have to run the static testing on the lamp. Then you have to QC that entire machine. Remember, Vitros has approximately 7 times the number of analytes that Architect does. Luckily, this worked (even though it was down for several hours), and luckily, most of the testing could be pushed over to the back-up machine, but not all of it.
Meanwhile, back at the Abbot, when we were done with all our QC-ing, the FT4 was still out! We had to recalibrate the reagent at this point, which takes over an hour.
So, yes, basically the entire chemical analyzer section was down from the hours of about 9 am to about 2pm. Am I painting a good enough nightmare picture here. There were tubes all over the benchtop, lined up to go into the analyzer when it was up and running. We were frantically making sure that every test order was for an analyte that was stable long enough for us to fix this thing and prioritizing who needed to go in first (based on priority and stability). Meanwhile, nurses are calling. Understandably. They sent their orders down, and if I do say so myself, our turn around time is not bad at all. So, even though our official guarantee is several hours, they're used to 20 minutes. Don't worry, if there was anyone dying, we have an agreement with University of Utah Hospital across the street that if we're in dire straits, we can send them emergency samples and vice versa.
This is where I make our observation. I would apologetically tell them, "I'm so sorry. The analyzer for that test is down at the moment. We have four medical lab scientists working on it and we will get it fixed as soon as possible. Would you like us to call you when we have the results?"
I must say, I was impressed. Most of the nurses were very kind. "Oh that must be terrible for you guys! Yeah, if you could call us that would be great. Our extension is xxxxx. Do you have any estimate on when it will be?"
"I really wish I knew."
"Hope you get it fixed soon." I doubt that at the hospital I worked at in New York this would have happened.
There was one exception. "Why did you break it?"
"Well, parts wore out."
"I need this. I have to do my job. What are you doing to fix it?"
"Like I said, we are working on it as quickly as possible. Again, I apologize." This went on and on. And you know what? The lady who was rude to us got her results just as fast as the ones that were nice and courteous about it. That really achieved nothing, now did it?
And for the record, we fixed it, I sang happy songs as I loaded FT4 samples that had piled up through the day into the Architect, and we got the department back to normal by the time I left. And, because people ask, "Who fixes the machines?" We do. There are technical support guys who come when we're at our wits' end, but they don't come until we're at our wits end, and if we ask them to come, they ask a bajillion questions to make sure we really are at our wits' end. But it's true. I am part-medical-lab-scientist, part-machine-mechanic. And I fixed the thing! (With the help of three others).
Every day, we have to run QC on all our machines. We have it analyze a specimen that we know the value of, and it has to be within a certain range of the value we know it to be. This morning, I was running the QC on the Abbot Architect, when low and behold, the FT4 (a thyroid hormone) readings were all over the board! Darn it! That means that 1) We can't run any FT4 until it's fixed and 2) We can't run anything on it at all while it's opened up and we're fiddling with the thing. We eventually had to replace the pipetting device. But when you do that, you have to run QC on the entire machine. Even the analytes that usually get their QC done by the night or evening shifts.
We were in the middle of this, and still running the chemistries on the Vitros (the majority of orders can be done with only the Vitros) when it starts throwing error codes! Turns out its reflectometer lamp was broken! That means that you have to shut the entire machine off so that you can power down the lamp, let it cool off (it can give you nice 2nd degree burns if you try to change it without letting it cool down), and then replace it. Then you have to run the static testing on the lamp. Then you have to QC that entire machine. Remember, Vitros has approximately 7 times the number of analytes that Architect does. Luckily, this worked (even though it was down for several hours), and luckily, most of the testing could be pushed over to the back-up machine, but not all of it.
Meanwhile, back at the Abbot, when we were done with all our QC-ing, the FT4 was still out! We had to recalibrate the reagent at this point, which takes over an hour.
So, yes, basically the entire chemical analyzer section was down from the hours of about 9 am to about 2pm. Am I painting a good enough nightmare picture here. There were tubes all over the benchtop, lined up to go into the analyzer when it was up and running. We were frantically making sure that every test order was for an analyte that was stable long enough for us to fix this thing and prioritizing who needed to go in first (based on priority and stability). Meanwhile, nurses are calling. Understandably. They sent their orders down, and if I do say so myself, our turn around time is not bad at all. So, even though our official guarantee is several hours, they're used to 20 minutes. Don't worry, if there was anyone dying, we have an agreement with University of Utah Hospital across the street that if we're in dire straits, we can send them emergency samples and vice versa.
This is where I make our observation. I would apologetically tell them, "I'm so sorry. The analyzer for that test is down at the moment. We have four medical lab scientists working on it and we will get it fixed as soon as possible. Would you like us to call you when we have the results?"
I must say, I was impressed. Most of the nurses were very kind. "Oh that must be terrible for you guys! Yeah, if you could call us that would be great. Our extension is xxxxx. Do you have any estimate on when it will be?"
"I really wish I knew."
"Hope you get it fixed soon." I doubt that at the hospital I worked at in New York this would have happened.
There was one exception. "Why did you break it?"
"Well, parts wore out."
"I need this. I have to do my job. What are you doing to fix it?"
"Like I said, we are working on it as quickly as possible. Again, I apologize." This went on and on. And you know what? The lady who was rude to us got her results just as fast as the ones that were nice and courteous about it. That really achieved nothing, now did it?
And for the record, we fixed it, I sang happy songs as I loaded FT4 samples that had piled up through the day into the Architect, and we got the department back to normal by the time I left. And, because people ask, "Who fixes the machines?" We do. There are technical support guys who come when we're at our wits' end, but they don't come until we're at our wits end, and if we ask them to come, they ask a bajillion questions to make sure we really are at our wits' end. But it's true. I am part-medical-lab-scientist, part-machine-mechanic. And I fixed the thing! (With the help of three others).
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