There is a lot happening in the HealthCare industry. We find ourselves at a turning point in the history of our healthcare system and its processes. With constant changes and regulations in the market, it may be easy to lose focus on what’s important. When market leaders remain true to their core values of providing excellent products, with the best interest of the patient in mind, goals start to sync up and better care is a result.

FecalSwab^® and BioFire’s FilmArray^® Gastrointestinal (GI) Panel are a great example of this. Two solutions meet in the middle, picking up where the other left off, to get you the right results, fast. When a patient presents with symptoms of gastrointestinal problems, a fecal sample must be collected for testing. COPAN’s FecalSwab^® is a universal collection and preservation system for enteric diagnostics. The FecalSwab^® kit comprises of a COPAN flocked swab and 2 mL of Cary-Blair medium, which is called out as the “Gold Standard” for the preservation and transportation media for enteric bacteria. When it comes to collecting sample for molecular based gastrointestinal disease diagnostics, FecalSwab^® provides a much more convenient and compact workflow solution.

Meeting in the middle and picking up where FecalSwab^® leaves off, BioFire’s FilmArray^® Gastrointestinal (GI) Panel is then used to test for an array of bacteria, viruses and parasites that can be the cause of gastrointestinal infections. The FilmArray^® takes about two minutes to set up and can generate results in about an hour!

FilmArray^® requires sample collected in a Cary-Blair transport media, therefore FecalSwab^® is a convenient and “easy” system to use in conjunction with the FilmArray^®. FilmArray^® uses a pouch that contains all the necessary reagents for sample preparation, reverse transcription-PCR, and PCR. The process is completed within 5 easy steps. First, the user must prepare the pouch, placing it onto the loading station. Second, hydrate the pouch with the hydration injection vial. Third, prepare the sample by adding the sample buffer and then simply transferring 200 µl of FecalSwab^® transport medium into the sample injection vile. In step four the sample is injected into the reagent pouch. Finally, the pouch is inserted into the machine to begin testing! To learn more about how it works click here.

The breakthrough in enabling a physician to collect a sample, run the test and turn results within a few hours translates into direct benefits for the hospital and lab in cost reduction AND effective diagnosis and treatment for the patient. Feeling better, sooner is one thing, but for certain, more aggressive strains of gastrointestinal disease, a fast result can save a life and the ripple effect of such an outcome is priceless.