OREANDA-NEWS. Ortho Clinical Diagnostics today announced ORTHO VISION™ Max, a fully automated blood analyser for high-volume transfusion medicine laboratories, received CE Mark clearance, signifying its conformity with all EU regulation. It will be available for purchase in Europe and Japan in October.

The ORTHO VISION™ Max launch follows the 2014 release of the ORTHO VISION™ Analyzer, an instrument designed for small- to mid-sized transfusion labs. While the ORTHO VISION™ Analyzer provides safety and efficiency benefits through automation, ORTHO VISION™ Max transforms larger labs, providing greater instrument capacity and "walk-away" time to increase productivity and throughput.

"Ortho Clinical Diagnostics now provides a fully integrated and completely scalable transfusion medicine solution throughout the full spectrum of labs, whether the load is 15 tests or 150 per day," said Robert Yates, chief operating officer, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. "Labs are being pushed for faster turnaround of results and improved operational efficiency, yet they're often short staffed. They need a suite of products that will enable them to disperse the work, improve time-to-result and better manage their contribution to the overall critical care path."

ORTHO VISION™ Max is designed for labs conducting greater than 50 types and screens per day and also supports more complex procedures, such as titrations, reflex tests and selected cell antibody identifications. The flexibility and responsiveness of the system allow the transfusion medicine department to process samples as they are received versus waiting for a complete batch to run the instrument.

Together the ORTHO VISION™ analysers build on Ortho Clinical Diagnostics' proven track record of innovation in the transfusion medicine industry, delivering the only integrated instrument platform that is part of a larger portfolio of products and services, and that can be tailored to the needs of any facility -- from small labs to multi-site networks.

"Transfusion medicine departments are now focused not only on testing, but on connecting their work to patient outcomes. Hospitals are also under extreme pressure to cut costs," said Heidi Casaletto, head of transfusion medicine at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. "A complete portfolio of products operating on a single platform means engaging with one user interface, ordering one set of consumables and streamlining training for everyone in the department. It also means more rapid delivery of actionable results that would increase the efficiency of patient diagnosis and a recommended treatment plan."

Developed in direct partnership with transfusion medicine specialists, the ORTHO VISION™ platform provides valuable "walk-away" time to focus on other critical tasks, such as quality control, blood component preparation and esoteric testing.

"The ORTHO VISION™ and ORTHO VISION™ Max are the first analysers that raise expectations for automation, changing how transfusion medicine specialists run their labs," said Casaletto.