Fast blood impedance measurements as quality indicators in the pre-analytical phase to prevent laboratory errors

In clinical laboratories, the major proportion of errors regarding blood analyses occurs in the pre-analytical phase. Pre-analytical conditions are key, necessary factors in maintaining the high quality of specimens, limiting day-to-day and batch variations, and guaranteeing the absolute reliability and accuracy of clinical results and related diagnoses. The quality of serum samples must be very high in order to avoid interferences due to hemolysis, thereby preventing measurement errors. In addition, the quality of the blood should always be fast monitored to identify inadequacies and guarantee their complete usability in transfusion procedures. In the near future, the solution could be to supply laboratories with smart and portable devices that are able to perform fast quality tests for every sample. Electrical impedance has relevant potential in analyzing and monitoring blood quality. We propose a new, simple impedancebased biosensor that can perform accurate and efficient single and multi-frequency impedance measurements in the pre-analytical phase and to check the quality of blood samples using quantitative thresholds as useful indicators to ensure the reliability of results and thereby prevent laboratory errors. The proposed sensor allows for discriminating different blood components, identifying hemolysis in serum, evaluating blood quality, and rapidly quantifying its hematocrit.