Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has announced the launch of the RAPIDPoint® 500 Blood Gas System, its latest point-of-care analyzer for critical care testing.

As the demand for point of care (POC) testing increases in the hospital setting, clinicians are increasingly relying on these tests to deliver fast, accurate results to help them make important treatment decisions. The RAPIDPoint® 500 system is available worldwide, and offers a comprehensive menu of critical-care tests. Blood gases and pH, electrolytes, glucose and lactate1 and full CO-oximetry, including neonatal total bilirubin and total haemoglobin, can all be derived from a single, whole-blood sample.

“The RAPIDPoint® 500 system is designed to satisfy the unique demands of testing at the point of care,” said Hilda Crockett, Business Manager Point of Care at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. “In addition to being easy-to-use, the analyser leverages proven and reliable cartridge-based technologies to deliver fast, accurate, laboratory-quality results, helping clinicians feel confident in making critical decisions that impact patient lives.”

Equipped with fully automated calibration and Quality Control (QC), the RAPIDPoint® 500 system is also designed to help POC professionals satisfy organisational and regulatory compliance requirements. Plus, the self-contained Automatic Quality Control (AQC) cartridge operates without manual intervention, helping reduce POC staff’s administrative tasks An integrated bar code reader – conveniently located on the front of the system – offers a wide scanning area to accommodate patient and operator identification to ensure overall data entry integrity. 

The RAPIDPoint® 500 analyser can be integrated with the Siemens RAPIDComm® Data Management System, as per other Siemens POC solutions, offering centralised management of multiple Siemens blood gas, urine and diabetes analysers and operators.