It occupies a surface area of 2,500 square metres spread over two floors and has a team of highly qualified professionals.
The Clinical Analysis Laboratory of the Hospital Universitari Son Espases, a benchmark in the Balearic Islands, attends an average of 2,000 patients a day. It receives 7,000 samples from the Sample Management Unit, which provides service to the rest of the Hospital’s laboratories. It also analyses 2,000 tubes of serum and 1,000 of urine, and carries out more than 37,000 determinations daily. It also participates with the Regional Ministry of Health in the Public Health programmes of neonatal screening and colon cancer prevention. It has state-of-the-art technological equipment, which makes it a national and international reference laboratory.
TDB keeps you informed. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
The Son Espases Clinical Analysis Laboratory attends to some 2,000 patients a day
The laboratory has a team of highly qualified professionals to offer personalised, predictive, preventive and participatory medicine, which combines artificial intelligence and the latest technological advances to provide the best care for patients in the Balearic Islands.
The president of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, accompanied by the councillor for Health, Manuela García; the director general of the Health Service, Javier Ureña; the managing director of Son Espases, Cristina Granados, and the head of the Clinical Analysis Service, visited the laboratory facilities, which occupy a surface area of 2,500 square metres spread over two floors.
On the one hand, there is the special tests laboratory, which integrates the areas where determinations that require sophisticated technology and are more complex are carried out. The main area of expertise is the area of Pharmacology and Clinical Toxicology, for the detection of drugs, drugs of abuse and ethyl alcohol. The main areas of study are mental health, epilepsy, serious hospital infections and poisoning, among others. The results make it possible to predict toxic effects, confirm diagnoses and prevent adverse effects.
The special tests laboratory also includes the hormone area; the prenatal screening area, which has developed a protocol for detecting chromosomal abnormalities in the foetuses of pregnant women; the tumour marker area, to ensure early diagnosis of oncological processes and personalised monitoring of treatment; the area for the study of biomarkers of cognitive deterioration; the gastroenterology area; the area for the study of metabolic errors for the study of rare diseases, and the area of neonatal screening (heel prick test), whose detection during the first hours of life reduces possible sequelae. It is precisely in this area that cutting-edge technology and resources are being implemented to expand the portfolio of services and make the Balearic Islands one of the autonomous communities that analyses the most diseases.
On the other hand, there is the CORE area, the other major area of the Son Espases laboratory, where samples are processed with maximum automation and the use of digital tools that improve operational capacity. This automation system, a regional benchmark, integrates the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical processes, improves traceability, ensures the quality of the process, and allows for the implementation of optimisation strategies in the analytical process. This system provides a turnaround time of less than 60 minutes for 90 % of urgent tests, 90 minutes for oncology patients, 120 minutes for the IVF unit, 4 hours for hospitalised patients and 24 hours for primary care patients, with consequent benefits for patients. In addition, it reduces the volume of blood required and, consequently, the number of tubes taken from patients.
This area of the CORE is a national and international benchmark that receives visits from professionals from leading hospitals such as Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, Ramón y Cajal in Madrid and Dr Peset in Valencia, among others, as well as hospitals in Canada, Belgium, Italy and Portugal.
In short, the Son Espases laboratory has a high degree of automation and the latest technology available, making it the benchmark laboratory in the Balearic Islands.
Quality, safety, efficiency and innovation are the hallmarks of the Son Espases Clinical Analysis laboratory.