Clinical Chemistry Lab at the Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital
This Spotlight was hosted by the Lab Supervisor, Zhiqi Gao.
Q: What is your test menu?
A: We have a comprehensive clinical chemistry laboratory, including coagulation testing, hematology, and biochemistry. We also run a rapid lab in our Emergency Department. The rapid lab can do blood gases, heparin testing, and a chemistry panel. The main lab has total lab automation using the Siemens TLA system.
Q: Does the Clinical Chemistry lab oversee the point of care of testing?
A: Point of care testing is completely nurse-run. No clinical lab oversight until recently.
Q: What is your patient population?
A: We serve the Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, which is a 1500 bed hospital. The hospital cares for both adult and pediatric patients.
Q: Do you make any modifications to the lab workflow or processes to accommodate smaller volume pediatric specimens?
No, the same volumes are collected in both pediatric and adult patients so all the samples can be processed on the same [automated] line with no modifications.
Q: Who is the lab director and how is the lab organized?
A: Like most Chinese clinical laboratories, there is no director specifically for the chemistry lab. There is one director over all the labs – kind of like a Chief of Clinical Pathology in the United States. The, each lab (chemistry, microbiology, etc.) has a supervisor. There is a Quality Manager for the entire Laboratory Department.
Q: What are your three main challenges?
A: Funding, space, and staff. Currently space is our biggest challenge.
Q: Is the lab accredited and by which agency?
A: The lab is accredited by both CAP and ISO. So, we have an inspection every year! The inspections alternate between CAP and ISP. We have to be ready for an inspection at all times. For EQA, we use CAP proficiency testing and BCCL (NCCL) EQA material. With these, all of the analytes in our test menu are covered.
Q: Do you have any success stories?
A: We have so many success stories! It’s hard to pick one! Every day we have success stories and contribute to saving lives.
One of our biggest successes is the integration of CAP and ISO. We have a very efficient system and are proud of our turnaround time. The most common order is a complete chemistry profile and our TAT for this is 2 hours.
