MDS Diagnostic Services Uses Vitek® 2 to Fully Automate Labs

bioMérieux, Inc., have secured a five-year contract with MDS Diagnostic Services, the largest provider of laboratory testing services in Canada.

Under the terms of this arrangement, bioMérieux will supply its VITEK® 2 automated bacteriology identification and susceptibility testing (ID/AST) system to eight MDS laboratories in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada.

The VITEK 2 is a fully automated bacterial identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing system. The system also includes a highly advanced software system that then interprets the identified bacteria's antibiotic resistance patterns. Additionally, bioMérieux has designed a unique, 64-well susceptibility card specifically for MDS to further enhance productivity on their VITEK 2 instruments. The VITEK 2 offers random or batch processing, rapid results and a quality control module. The system is used for bacterial and yeast identification, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and urine screening and features an Advanced Expert System (AES) and Observa®, complete data management system.

The VITEK 2 provides rapid results processing (a two to six hour average turnaround), which enables MDS Diagnostic Services to provide timely and accurate test results to the more than 21,000 health care providers and 17 million patients it serves annually.

The VITEK 2 has already been implemented in two labs in British Columbia and implementation of VITEK 2 in MDS' Ontario labs will begin this summer.