Across the healthcare spectrum budgets are under constant scrutiny which means maximizing current resources and finding faster, better, cost-efficient ways to deliver high quality services is critical. The Centers for Disease Control and the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) have joined forces on the Laboratory Efficiencies Initiative (LEI) to help public health laboratories achieve and maintain sustainability to conduct vital services in the face of unprecedented financial and other pressures. Additional challenges facing laboratories include the cost of operating and maintaining highly sophisticated testing systems, advancements in the overall healthcare system, the aging workforce, and emerging diseases and conditions which present readiness challenges.
Rapid tests are one way laboratories can become more efficient and ready to meet the challenges of the evolving healthcare environment. RVF rapid tests support key improvement strategies around workflow, resource management, the consolidation of testing services, and overall preparedness for crisis situations.
MedMira’s Rapid Vertical Flow (RVF) Technology platform enables rapid tests that are designed for both the point-of-care (POC) and the laboratory. RVF rapid tests enable instant results following a simple, standardized 3-minute procedure using whole blood, serum, or plasma. Bridging all testing needs between POC and the lab, RVF rapid tests allow for a consistent testing platform to be implemented across many departments and service programs within an organization, streamlining training and procurement processes for a single platform and manufacturer.
Rapid tests, typically marketed primarily for screening programs and field-based testing, may not always be considered as laboratory testing method, however MedMira’s Reveal G4 rapid HIV test and predecessor products (i.e. Reveal G3) have been successfully serving the needs of laboratorians for many years. Used in hospitals’ central labs for urgent patient screening requests from the emergency department or labor and delivery, or in cases of occupational exposures, Reveal G4 enables the lab tech to run just one test or easily batch test multiple samples, whichever is dictated by the situation at hand or the established process. With instant results, urgent needs can be met for better patient treatment and outcomes, and there is no technician downtime waiting to read results at a specified time as there are with other rapid tests.
RVF Technology also offers multiplexing which supports the consolidation of testing programs often run and facilitated by laboratories at the state or municipal level. The multiplexing capabilities of the RVF platform make it possible for labs merge testing programs for diseases that share transmission routes or where co-infection impacts treatment of each disease. For instance, in the case of HIV and hepatitis C which share similar risk factors and a growing co-infection rate, testing services could be consolidated to deliver testing, counselling, and if necessary treatment in a single program, supported by an RVF multiplex rapid test. In pre-natal screening programs, pregnant women are routinely tested for multiple diseases that could affect their pregnancy or the health of their unborn baby. Multiplex rapid tests would also serve these types of programs, focused on a single demographic, in this case pregnant women, or similar diseases by enabling the testing of multiple diseases using the same time and resources it would take to test for just one disease using other technology platforms. Using multiplex diagnostics to re-shape testing programs and capitalize on shared resources makes sense for the bottom line and supports better sharing of data.
Laboratories are also concerned with surveillance and response to emerging epidemics like the Zika virus or Ebola, which have the potential to spread quickly and out of control. RVF Technology facilitates the easy adaptation of traditional lab-based diagnostics to field tests, which can easily bridge the gap between the lab and the point-of-care in an urgent, humanitarian health crisis. The MedMira technology platform is versatile and adaptable to many types of biomarkers for conditions and infectious diseases. Laboratories can increase their readiness for these emerging healthcare challenges with MedMira’s experience and RVF Technology which offers the ability to rapidly scale product development with new biological agents to create a fast, multiplex screening tool to be used where ever it is needed.
This week we’re participating in the 2016 Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, NM to meet with federal, state, and local public health laboratorians about how Reveal G4 rapid HIV test and RVF Technology can benefit their organizations. Check it out at www.aphl.org