Rutgers University blood testing platform integrates robotic phlebotomy to provide diagnostics in a fully automated manner at point of care, reducing turnaround times and expediting processes. Blood testing is one of the most common diagnostic clinical procedures worldwide that influences the majority of medical decisions made. Traditional blood draw success rates are dependent on patient physiology and clinical skill, results are typically generated in centralized labs from large volume samples using labor intensive analytical techniques.
This platform device includes an image guided venipuncture robot to address challenges of routine venous access, and a centrifuge based blood analyzer to obtain quantitative measurements of hematology. High accuracy and repeatability of cannulation and resulting white blood cell assay has been demonstrated in testing from blood draw to analysis using blood vessel phantoms.
The platform combines breadth and accuracy of traditional laboratory testing with speed and convenience of point of care testing by integrating miniaturized robotics and microfluidic systems, and can be extended to incorporate a broader panel of assays in the future.