Hospital Maggiore della Carità: IstoTech for the intensive storage and traceability of histological samples
THE COMPANY
The Hospital Maggiore della Carità located in Novara, Italy, was originally a charitable institution dedicated to St Michael Archangel, hence the name “Casa di San Michele della Carità ”, but since 2007 it has assumed the legal status of a “University Hospital Trust”. Today it is a highly specialized hospital of national importance and a teaching centre for the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”.
It is the primary care facility in the north-eastern part of the Piedmont region and hosts the main cancer treatment centre for the provinces of Novara, Vercelli, Verbano-Cusiio-Ossola. It also offers a full range of medical and surgical specialities, for in-patient, out-patient or day hospital care, rehabilitation or accident and emergency.
THE LOGISTICS CHALLENGES
Given the growing volume of cytological, biopsy and surgical samples that had to be managed, the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy at the Maggiore Hospital in Novara was forced to look for a solution that would be able to automate and simplify the manual processes involved in coding, archiving and searching for slides and biocassettes, in order to increase the compliance of the laboratory processes and achieve the following specific goals:
- ensure traceability and reduce the risk of loss
- ensure the proper storage of biological material over the years
- reduce the clinical risk related to the loss and / or incorrect handling of samples
- speed up search operations
THE SOLUTION
Katalog, a company which specializes in archiving services, was chosen to oversee the project and opted to use the innovative IstoTech automated archive from ICAM, interfaced with its own bbTraccia® traceability software and the laboratory management system, to digitize the entire coding, storage and traceability system.
At 3,7 metres high, the IstoTech automated archive can safely store 161,280 biocassettes and 272,000 slides in just 9.97 m² of floor space.
The biological samples are organized and stored in trays which have been specially designed to hold slides and paraffin blocks: each tray can store 1,920 biocasettes arranged in 8 specific cassette holders or 17,000 slides stored in 26 plastic containers.
