BioFire FilmArray\u00ae Respiratory Panels decreased isolation times by four days, according to study conducted at Vancouver General Hospital.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
From December 2016 to May 2017, researchers at Vancouver General Hospital conducted a randomized control trial to evaluate the clinical impact, infection control impact and cost effectiveness of the BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panel assay in 158 patients with respiratory infections.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
More specifically, researchers were keen to see what effect this new technology would have on the amount of time that patients are kept in infection control isolation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The results of the study were encouraging in this regard: Implementing the BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panel decreased isolation times by approximately four days compared to routine testing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhen a patient comes into the emergency room with any type of worsening respiratory illness, or if they come in with an abnormal chest x-ray, we put them in isolation right away because we don\u2019t yet know what they have,\u201d says Dr. Titus Wong, primary investigator of the study and Medical Microbiologist and Infection Control Physician at Vancouver General Hospital. \u201cThe sooner we can rule things out, the better for patient care, as well as for bed management and bed flow.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panel is capable of detecting 17 viral and three bacterial targets in one hour\u2014an accelerated diagnostic turnaround that Dr. Wong sees as a game changer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cOnce that swab gets into our hands, we can have a result ready for physicians in an hour, which is something that we\u2019ve previously never been able to do. At best, we could give them a result for in-house work anywhere from a few hours up to a day. And if we had to send anything out to the reference centre, it could take anywhere from 24 hours to five days.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cHaving the certainty of being able to promise a result in an hour,\u201d he continues, \u201cis extremely powerful.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The Microbiology Laboratory team and the Infection Control team collaborated hand in hand on this study, which Dr. Wong also says was key. \u201cWe have a very close working relationship between Medical Microbiology and Infection Control, as well as with our colleagues in Quality Patient Safety and Infectious Disease. These relationships allow us to advocate for each other in various areas and help articulate the needs of each group.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Cost-effectiveness is, of course, of paramount concern in any hospital setting. \u201cIn a health care environment where there are always limited resources and competing interests, it\u2019s really refreshing to work in an area\u2014this whole infection area\u2014where everyone can focus on mutually prioritized goals that can benefit us all,\u201d says Dr. Wong.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Having diagnostic certainty a lot sooner in the patient journey is one such goal. \u201cFor the patient, this helps improve response times not only for treatment, but also for infection control. And for the hospital, it helps improve bed management and bed flow time. All of these things combined ultimately improve patient outcomes and satisfaction, and also help save hospital resources and divert them to other areas where they\u2019re needed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
With a quicker diagnostic response time, patients with negative results aren\u2019t kept on isolation longer than necessary. \u201cWe want to keep patients in isolation to make sure that other patients and health care workers are protected from potential pathogens,\u201d says Dr. Wong. \u201cBut only as long as it\u2019s necessary. The fact that we\u2019re only keeping a patient in isolation for hours as opposed to days is very impactful for patient care\u2014and for the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
With a limited number of isolation rooms in the hospital, freeing up a bed for another patient who needs it is key.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Quicker response times also have a clinical impact on the most vulnerable patients in the hospital. \u201cEverybody\u2014especially our critical care physicians and transplant physicians\u2014was extremely grateful for the turnaround time and the comprehensiveness of the panel,\u201d says Dr. Wong. \u201cThere\u2019s typically a plethora of potential etiologies, and being able to quickly rule something in or out helps us on that diagnostic pathway. It helps us direct hospital resources and human resources towards another diagnosis during these critical hours of care.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
According to Dr. Wong, many of the physicians wrote supporting letters advocating for the technology and its impact on patient care. \u201cAs the study went on, we\u2019d get requests from certain critical care colleagues asking, \u2018Could my patient get, quote unquote, randomized to the treatment on the test arm?\u2019 And we\u2019d say, \u2018Sorry, it doesn\u2019t work that way!\u2019 But it speaks to how much they like the technology.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
With minimal hands-on time required, the BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panel takes only a few minutes to run a sample, which Dr. Wong also sees as an effective use of resources. \u201cIt frees up the technologist to work on other tasks that require their expertise.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
What\u2019s next for Dr. Wong and his team? \u201cWell, first of all, we have a responsibility to share our experience, so we\u2019re presenting at multiple conferences. We\u2019re also working on a manuscript and that should be coming out very shortly.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Dr. Wong can\u2019t say enough about the teams within the hospital that advocated for the implementation of the BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panel:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in different areas of expertise, you might not be aware of the newest or latest or most advanced technologies available. And so you really need the people in the know\u2014the diagnostic microbiology and infectious disease physicians and infectious control physicians\u2014to speak up and advocate for them.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWe\u2019d also like to thank Quality Patient Safety and our administrators for really jumping on board and supporting this. They think that it\u2019s good value for patient care and for the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The use of the BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panels won\u2019t, however, be limited to Vancouver General Hospital. \u201cWe\u2019re also a regional laboratory for multiple health care institutions, and we have a plan to roll out testing to these other institutions as well,\u201d confirms Dr. Wong.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BioFire FilmArray\u00ae Respiratory Panels decreased isolation times by four days, according to study conducted at Vancouver General Hospital. From December 2016 to May 2017, researchers at Vancouver General Hospital conducted a randomized control trial to evaluate the clinical impact, infection control impact and cost effectiveness of the BioFire FilmArray Respiratory Panel assay in 158 patients […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[32,33],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-value-of-diagnostic","tag-clinical","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3475,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/3475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biomerieuxinnovation.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}