JP2006010530A - Specimen processing method and system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for correctly injecting part of a specimen to a new specimen holding container to which an identification display member, to which identification information of the identification display member attached to a specimen holding container is transcribed, is attached when part of the specimen in the specimen holding container is injected in the new specimen holding container and to provide a container supply apparatus used for the same. <P>SOLUTION: Identification information of an identification display member attached to a specimen holding container containing a specimen is read and transmitted to an arithmetic storage device storing the information. At the reception of the information, the arithmetic storage device transmits an instruction for transcribing the information to a printing device to print it on a new identification display member. The printed identification display member is automatically attached to a new empty specimen holding container. Identification information of the new empty specimen holding container to which the identification display member is newly attached is read and transmitted to the arithmetic storage device. The arithmetic storage device determines whether information transmitted from the new empty specimen holding container is matched with information transmitted from the specimen holding container containing the specimen or not and automatically transfers the empty specimen holding container to an artificially-extractable position only in the case that they are matched with each other. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

The present invention provides another container in which a display member having the same content as information on a predetermined display member attached to a sample container that contains a sample such as blood collected from a subject is automatically pasted and tested. The present invention relates to a sample processing method and apparatus capable of improving work efficiency in a center and preventing sample misplacement.

  In the medical field, a sample such as blood is collected in a test tubular sample container and provided for various tests. Such specimen testing is performed not only in hospitals, but also in medical institutions such as hospitals and clinics. Samples are collected from subjects and transported to an inspection center that is an external institution. A system that feeds back to each medical institution is generally performed.

Samples collected at each medical institution are placed in a sample container to which a barcode associated with an examination request form in which examination request information and the like are written is pasted. When the collected specimen is blood and its serum fraction is used for testing, it is necessary to centrifuge the blood and then separate the serum fraction obtained in the supernatant fraction and transfer it to another container There is. At this time, it is necessary to confirm that the information displayed on the new container is associated with the information displayed on the sample container delivered from the medical institution. When this work is performed manually while checking the correspondence between each sample container and the name of the label, the work requires a great mental concentration and can cause human error. There is.
Many specimen handling systems using bar codes as disclosed in Patent Document 1 are known as methods for preventing human error due to manual work. However, there is no known method for manually transferring the original specimen together with the specimen information.
JP 2003-294664 A

  An object of the present invention is to solve the above inconvenience, and when injecting a part of a sample in a sample holding container containing a sample into a new sample holding container, the sample was attached to the sample holding container containing the sample. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of definitely injecting a part of a specimen into a new specimen holding container attached with identification information of an identification display member and an identification display member to which the identification display member is transferred and displayed, and a device used therefor.

  The present invention comprises the following means. The identification information of the sample identification display member attached to the sample holding container containing the sample is read and sent to the arithmetic storage device that holds the information. Upon receiving the information, the arithmetic storage device issues an instruction to transfer the information to the printing device and causes the new identification display member to print it. Further, the printed identification display member is automatically attached to a new empty sample holding container. The identification information of the empty sample holding container newly attached with the identification display member is read and sent to the arithmetic storage device. The calculation storage device determines that the information sent from the empty sample holding container is the same as the information sent from the sample holding container containing the sample. The holding container is automatically transferred to a position where it can be removed artificially. The transferred empty specimen holding container is manually taken out, and at least a part of the contents of the original specimen holding container is manually transferred to the container.

The present invention has the following configuration.
1. a step of reading information from a sample identification display member attached to a container for accommodating a sample collected from a subject (first step), a sample identification display member having the same content as the read information different from the sample identification display member A step of transferring and displaying (second step), a step of attaching the inspection identification display member transferred and displayed to a container different from the container, and a step of holding the container at a position where it cannot be taken out (third step). A step of reading information from the sample identification display member (fourth step), a step of collating the read information with the information read in the first step, and determining whether or not both pieces of information match (fifth step), The step (sixth step) of guiding the container attached with the sample identification display member to the position where it can be taken out in the third step only when the determined results match, and the subject Sample processing method characterized by comprising the step (seventh step) of injecting at least a portion of al harvested specimen container derived in the sixth step.
2. A step of reading information from a sample identification display member attached to a container for accommodating a sample collected from a subject (first step), a sample identification display member having the same content as the read information different from the sample identification display member A process of transferring and displaying (second process), a process of automatically attaching the inspection identification display member displayed by transcription to a container different from the container, and a process of holding the container at a position where it cannot be taken out (third process) A step of reading information from the attached specimen identification display member (fourth step), a step of collating the read information with the information read in the first step, and determining whether or not both pieces of information match (fifth step) Step), a step of automatically guiding the container attached with the sample identification display member to a position where it can be taken out in the third step only when the determined results are consistent (sixth step) Sample processing apparatus characterized by interlocking.

The present invention can definitely inject a part of the original sample into a new container to which a sample identification display member to which the identification information of the original sample holding container is transcribed is attached, greatly reducing the sample injection time. It has a special effect that it becomes possible.

The specimen handling method in the present invention is not particularly limited as long as a part or all of the original container is injected or transferred to a new container, but in particular, a method for handling blood, urine, etc. Is the target. In particular, it is suitable as a sample processing method in the case where a serum fraction is fractionated from blood and injected or transferred to a new container. Serum is a fraction obtained by removing blood cells and coagulation fraction by centrifugation, but for accurate examination, it is necessary to fractionate serum fraction from blood cells and coagulation fraction after centrifugation. .
In that case, when transferring the serum fraction to a new container, it is necessary to definitely transfer it to the container in which the original specimen identification information is transferred.

In a medical institution, a barcode associated with examination request information is attached to a container from which a sample is collected. The contents of the inspection request information are registered in the host computer. When testing a specimen transferred from a medical institution to a testing center, if the test material is serum, the serum is separated, and the serum fraction is transferred to a new container and then used for testing. In some cases, the same specimen is divided into a plurality of containers and used for a plurality of examinations. In such sample transfer and injection operations, the original sample information must be reliably transferred to a new container. The present invention provides a method and apparatus for reliably performing the above operations.

The barcode attached to the original specimen holding container from which the specimen has been collected is read with a barcode reader, and the information is transmitted to the computer. The computer that receives the information transmits the same information to the barcode printer and prints the barcode on an appropriate label. The barcode printed label is automatically attached to the outside of a container such as a new test tube. Then, the information of the pasted barcode label is read by a barcode reader different from the barcode reader that has read the barcode of the original sample holding container containing the sample, and the read information is transmitted to the computer. Meanwhile, the new container is held at a position where it cannot be easily taken out from the outside. That is, it is kept at the position where the barcode is pasted. In this step, the order of the barcodes is not limited as long as the barcode with the sample identification information is pasted to a new container. That is, the printed barcode may be attached to a new empty container, or the barcode may be printed on a container with a label attached.

Judgment whether the information read from the barcode of the new container matches the information from the barcode of the original specimen holding container, and a test with a new barcode attached only if the information matches The pipe is moved to a position where the worker can take it out. Then, the worker injects or transfers the serum fraction in the original specimen holding container to the removed test tube.

If the information does not match, the test tube with the bar code label is sent to a position where it cannot be taken out by the operator so that no mistake is made. In this way, the sample information attached to the newly supplied test tube and the sample information of the original sample holding container are always the same or are definitely associated with each other.

Here, the format of the barcode to be used is not particularly limited as long as it can transmit information that can specify the specimen. For example, JAN (EAN) / abbreviated, UPC-A / UPC-E, CODE-39, NW-7 (CODABAR), ITF (Interleaved 2of5), CTF (Code 2of5 | Industrial 2of5), IATA (IATA 2of5), MATRIX (Matrix
2of5), NEC (NEC 2of5 | COOP
2of5), customer barcode, CODE-128, CODE-93, QR code, micro QR code, DataMatrix (ECC2000), DataMatrix (ECC2000 rectangle), PDF417, and the like.

  The specimen holding container is not particularly limited in shape, material, etc. In the case of blood, a test tube made of glass or synthetic resin is widely used.

The apparatus of the present invention has a function of transferring the information of a barcode attached to a specimen holding container containing a collected specimen, a function of printing the transferred barcode, attaching a barcode to a new container, and an original It is only necessary to provide a function of supplying a new container in real time only when the barcode information of the sample holding container matches the barcode information of the new container. The necessary arithmetic storage function may be provided in the apparatus main body or an external computer may be used.

  An embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG. A specimen transferred from a medical institution is held in a test tube 1 to which a barcode associated with specimen information is attached. The barcode is read by a dedicated barcode reader 2 and the information is sent to the arithmetic storage device 3. The arithmetic storage device 3 instructs the barcode printing device 5 to print the barcode based on the transmitted information. The bar code printing device prints on a label and affixes it to the empty test tube 4 or prints a bar code on a label in which a blank label has been affixed to the empty test tube 4 in advance. The printed barcode is read by the barcode reading device 7 and the information is sent to the arithmetic storage device 3. The arithmetic storage device collates the information sent with the information sent from the test tube 1 and, if they match, automatically removes the bar code affixed test tube 6 manually by the operator. Move to a possible position and supply the test tube. The worker transfers the supernatant of the test tube 1 to the taken-out test tube 6 and completes a series of operations.

  The present invention is used as a sample processing method and processing apparatus in an examination center.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the apparatus and the sample processing method of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

1,
Test tube 2 containing collected sample,
Bar code reader 3 dedicated to specimen holding test tubes,
Arithmetic storage device 4,
Empty test tube 5,
Barcode printing device 6,
Test tube 7 with barcode attached,
Bar code reader 8 for test tubes with barcode attached,
Removed test tube

Claims (2)

A step of reading information from a sample identification display member attached to a container containing a sample collected from a subject (first step), and the same content as the read information is transferred to a sample identification display member different from the sample identification display member A step of displaying (second step), a step of attaching the transferred and displayed test identification display member to a container different from the container, a step of holding the container in a position where it cannot be taken out (third step), and the attached sample The step of reading information from the identification display member (fourth step), the step of collating the read information with the information read in the first step, and determining whether or not the two information match (fifth step), Only when the results match, in the third step, a step (sixth step) of guiding the container with the specimen identification display member attached to a position where it can be removed, and taking from the subject. Sample processing method characterized by comprising the step (seventh step) of injecting at least a portion of the analyte in a container that has been guided in the sixth step. A step of reading information from a sample identification display member attached to a container containing a sample collected from a subject (first step), and the same content as the read information is transferred to a sample identification display member different from the sample identification display member A step of displaying (second step), a step of automatically attaching the inspection identification display member displayed by transcription to a container different from the container, and a step of holding the container in a position where it cannot be taken out (third step), attachment A step of reading information from the sample identification display member (fourth step), a step of collating the read information with the information read in the first step, and determining whether or not both pieces of information match (fifth step) The process (sixth process) is automatically guided to the position where the container with the sample identification display member attached can be taken out in the third process only when the collated information matches. Sample processing apparatus for causing.

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