Presentation from the TriCore Medical Director notes ease of use, flexibility, and accessibility of new point-of-care system
The annual meeting of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology (PASCV) is always a great event on the infectious diseases conference calendar. This year, the meeting brought the Diasorin team together with clinicians, laboratory specialists, and microbiology scientists in Clearwater Beach, FL, for an insightful discussion about advances in viral diagnostics.
In a Diasorin-sponsored presentation, PASCV attendees heard from an early user of the LIAISON NES® system. Jesse Young, PhD, Medical Director for Clinical Device Trials & Research at TriCore Reference Laboratories, shared his team’s experience in evaluating this new point-of-care diagnostic platform for their respiratory testing needs.
Watch the full 30-minute presentation, or explore key highlights from the meeting below.
How the LIAISON NES® makes molecular testing easy, accessible, and actionable.
TriCore Reference Laboratories is a primary commercial reference laboratory in New Mexico, with more than 70 testing sites across the state. They support three medical systems, including 160 clinics and urgent care locations. Shipping samples from each of these facilities to a laboratory across such a large geographic area can delay results. Point-of-care molecular testing addresses this by delivering fast, reliable results closer to the patient.
For this evaluation, Dr. Young and his team assessed the LIAISON NES system using the LIAISON NES® Flu A/B, RSV & COVID-19 assay. Some key advantages include:
- Established reimbursement pathways for four-target respiratory testing
- Simple nasal swab collection, including patient self-collection
- Familiar real-time reverse transcription PCR technology that provides lab-grade confidence results
Dr. Young then described his team’s experience with the LIAISON NES system. He pointed out several key areas that made a significant difference.
Simple Setup. “I really consider the Diasorin [LIAISON] NES a nice plug-and-play instrument,” Dr. Young told PASCV attendees. Helpful features included a QR code for setup, a training kit with a detailed checklist, and online training resources. The system allows users to set up an administrative account upfront, from which other user accounts can be created as needed to help streamline logistics for the operations team.
Designed for the point of care. The instrument is compact, Dr. Young said, and was clearly designed with limited point-of-care testing space in mind. The front-loading design supports tight spaces and flexible placement. Reagents can be stored at room temperature, and the guided workflow keeps testing straightforward. Each test requires less than a minute of hands-on time, with results in approximately 17 minutes. “It’s really difficult to actually mess this up, which is amazing,” he said.
Flexible access to results. Dr. Young was impressed by how many ways there are to access results from the LIAISON NES system. The connectivity options include wired, Wi-Fi, and HIPPA-compliant, cloud-based connections which enable results to be automatically uploaded to the facility’s laboratory information system (LIS) or to a patient’s electronic medical record (EMR). Even if connectivity is interrupted, each instrument can store up to 10,000 test results, making it possible to keep running new tests without disruption. Results can also be manually pushed to these systems from the instrument, printed out, or exported to a USB drive.
Excellent for regional coverage. For organizations like TriCore, the LIAISON NES system helps address logistical challenges across large regions by eliminating the need for sendout testing, and onsite monitoring due to remote accessibility. “This is really a wonderful platform to help centralize testing,” Dr. Young said.
Dr. Young and his team are working on a comparison study between the four-plex respiratory panel on the LIAISON NES system and another four-plex respiratory panel molecular point-of-care platform. Learn more about Dr. Young and his work, TriCore, and the innovative features of the LIAISON NES system.
For In Vitro Diagnostic Use. Products are region specific and may not be approved in some countries/regions. Please contact Diasorin at cs.molecular@diasorin.com to obtain the appropriate product information for your country of residence.