HI all, sorry for the late submission, computer was down and all. In any case, for my first 2 weeks, I was posted to the Urinalysis/ Routine section. As most of the tests done are through automation, I was required to learn how to operate the machines, the quality control tests made at the start of the day or at specfic hour of the day. There were times when the urine FEME tests are required to be done manually using dipsticks due to insufficient amount of sample. My job was to load up the specimen into a tube, ensuring that it has been labeled correctly before being placed in a rack for loading into the Atlas machine.

Picture taken from:

http://diagnostics.siemens.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay~q_catalogId~e_-111~a_catTree~e_100001,1015867~a_langId~e_-111~a_productId~e_172988~a_storeId~e_10001.htm

Clinitek Atlas is a fully automated reflectance spectrophotometer used to perform urinalysis testing. The various results retrieved are the glucose level, bilirubin, ketone, specfic gravity, blood, pH, protein, urobilinogen, nitrie. Leukocytes, the color and the clarity of the urine. It is capable of performing up to 200 samples at one go and that each roll is made up of 490 reagent strips. The samples(minimum volume ≥ 5ml) are loaded onto the sampler tray (maximum 10 tubes) and placed onto the infeed area.

Firstly, the bar code reader would scan the sticker on the tube for identification purposes and the automatic pipette will come forth to collect the specimen via the syringe pump and then dispenses a specific amount of sample onto each of the reagent strip pads and into the SG well for determination of the specific gravity and clarity. The remaining sample are dispensed into the rinse well followed by a larger volume of rinse solution that rinses both the inside and outside of the pipette. Finally, the pipette dispenses the rinse solution into the SG well to ensure complete rinsing of the well.

Quality controls are done every morning by the morning shifts. The CLINITEK ATLAS Control solution(s) are prepared by soaking CLINITEK ATLAS positive and negative control strips in 12ml of deionised water each for 30 minutes before being run under ‘ Control analyze mode’. The results should tally with the reference range provided by bayer healthcare.

Yup, that’s all for now. Any questions, feel free to ask me. Haha. I will do my best to answer them. =)

Debbie.