High quality diagnostics is what a medical laboratory needs to stay competitive and also help healthcare providers improve the quality of care. Advanced medical equipment is mandatory for timely and accurate diagnostic testing. Clinical laboratories with budget constraints are faced with the need to upgrade even in the face of increasing lab equipment costs. A reagent rental program can resolve the issue. This rental plan is widely accepted as an ideal option for lab professionals to improve their workflow. By tying the supply of quality lab equipment to the costs per tests (CPT) performed, leading lab equipment suppliers plan are helping laboratories acquire advanced instruments without having to pay for them upfront.

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Features of a typical reagent rental program

This Cost per Test (CPT) plan is a tie up between the laboratory equipment supplier and a medical laboratory for a specific period of time. It works on the basis of the minimum number of tests required to be done each month on the instrument supplied under the plan. Labs can come overcome their financial constraints as they have flexibility to pay for the tests on a monthly basis. The equipment dealer supplies the lab with the required equipment in exchange of the guarantee of reagent usage for the stipulated period. The cost of the instrument and the cost to lease is spread out over the agreement period.

Reagent rental programs enhance lab efficiency

When we look close to the health industry, we could see that small labs with budget limits are striving hard to carry out the lab operations and sometimes they may need to keep tests on hold due to inefficiency in purchasing costly laboratory equipment. With introduction of reagent rental plan, this story is outdated. By making using of this plan, they can come across lots of benefits which include the following.

The use of advanced equipment helps labs improve turnaround time. It also allows them to help physicians improve patient care with accurate and timely diagnostic results.

A reagent rental plan includes the cost of the equipment, cost of the lease and the cost of each reagent. A reliable dealer would also include service. All this makes it a feasible option for labs looking to expand testing and research. Lab equipment stores are now offering reagent-linked rental programs for advanced chemistry and immunoassay analyzers and other instruments from industry leaders such as Beckman Coulter, DPC/Siemens, and Tosoh. These arrangements are helping lab professionals improve their workflow and efficiency without the need for outright purchase of new medical lab equipment.

Medical lab pipet tip supplies are among the most consumed products in the medical industry. Laboratory regulations and both state and federal laws mandate that the handling and disposal of biological waste be done properly, and anything which comes into contact with a patient must be disposed of properly. This is why such supplies are consumed at such a large scale - because they are pretty much single use only items. Anything used for taking samples, or anything that comes into contact with bodily tissues and fluids are used once, and then disposed of properly, and immediately. But how is all of this kept from becoming so expensive?

Here's an example; a scalpel is used to take a tissue sample - does it then get thrown away? It used to be that when a scalpel was used, it was then put into an autoclave with other medical tools for sterilization. These days things are far more strict, as even though the former means of sterilization kept everything as close to 100% sterile as physically possible, there is still always a chance, no matter how slight or minute, of cross contamination. Now there are scalpel handles with disposable blades, and these are among the many types of disposable medical lab supplies we have today.

The dangers of cross contamination aren't always direct - some are indirect. For example, other disposable medical items can include vials or canisters for holding tissue samples or samples of bodily fluids and excretions for tests to be performed upon. Cross contamination can have an indirect effect upon patients in the way of influencing test results which would communicate incorrect data if gone unchecked. This can prove to be a very dangerous thing indeed, depending upon the outcome of such misrepresented data.

Again, while the present state of sterilization processes can and do kill 99.99% of all micro-organisms, there is always an existing chance, however astronomical, that anything reused may still be contaminated, however slightly. In the patient's best interest, and in the interest of professional ethics (not to mention minimizing malpractice incidents and incurring costs), anything that touches a patient once is invariably thrown away. From tongue depressors to scalpel blades, from cotton swabs to syringes, anything that comes into direct contact with tissues or bodily fluids are items which are single use only and disposed of as biological waste. These are the medical lab supplies which need to be kept well in stock at all times so that they may always be on hand.

While medical lab supplies pretty much all fall under this category, lab equipment is a bit different. Things such as centrifuges and the like, which may contain objects (test tubes, in the case of a centrifuge) which hold tissue samples and such, do not themselves come into direct contact with the biological matter. Such equipment still must be regularly cleaned and sterilized, but they don't need to be thrown away. Non-contact, non-disposable equipment and direct-contact disposable supplies usually go hand-in-hand. The above-mentioned centrifuge is one larger example, while the former-mentioned scalpel handle with disposable blade is another, smaller example.