MicroScan antibiogram software for WalkAway and LabPro labs that need an M39 report without the Excel template

Where the Antibiogram Export Tool falls short

The instructions are careful and the template works. The friction is in what surrounds it, and all of it is stated in Beckman's own document.

The full rule set, and how each route handles it, is on CLSI M39 antibiogram software. How labs weigh the instrument software against WHONET and Excel is covered in antibiogram software for microbiology labs.

• Old software requirements. The instructions say the tool requires Microsoft Excel 2010 or 2013 on Windows 7 and that no other versions are supported. Many hospital IT departments retired both years ago
• A long setup. Before the first export you check the duplicate isolate time limit, exclude proficiency survey isolates, review user-defined organisms, print and delete your existing Epidemiology Organism Groups and rebuild them with the template's codes. The full procedure runs to about 50 pages
• One institution per template. The template is built for a single institution, so outreach clients and sister hospitals each need their own copy and their own query
• Every cut is a new query. Beckman's note says that for separate urine and non-urine antibiograms you create two queries and use a separate copy of the template for each. The same applies to ICU or emergency department tables
• A 30,000 row ceiling. The Raw and Working Data sheets hold 30,000 rows. A busy lab exporting a year of isolates with every antibiotic can reach it
• Only what LabPro saw. Disk diffusion, gradient strips, reference lab send-outs and preliminary specimens are left out. The instructions note that isolates on specimens still marked preliminary are not exported
• Locked formulas. The template's formulas are password protected, so nobody outside Beckman can see exactly how a number was produced

How to export antibiogram data from MicroScan LabPro

You can reuse most of the LabPro setup you may already have. In Beckman's procedure the export is defined once under Print Reports, on the Epidemiology tab, as an Export Configuration that includes the isolate data and the antibiotic interpretations, in a fixed order. A stored patient query selects the panels and the date range. You then export to a file on removable media. Beckman warns a large export can take 30 minutes or more.

For Antimicrobe, keep the interpretations, add the patient identifier, source and location, and export the whole year with every isolate in it rather than first isolates only. Antimicrobe applies the first isolate rule itself, inside each cut, so it needs the repeats too. WHONET's BacLink guide for MicroScan LabPro describes the same route from the Epidemiology tab, with Export to File.

LabPro writes a tab-delimited text file. Open it in Excel and save it as CSV, and Antimicrobe reads it. The patient identifier is hashed before anything is stored, and a pseudonymous key works just as well. If your file has one column per antibiotic rather than one row per result, the mapping is set up once during onboarding.

If a meaningful share of your results never runs on the MicroScan, export from the LIS instead. What a good LIS export looks like is on laboratory information system exports.

1. 1

   LabPro

   Run your stored query for the year with the export configuration, every isolate included

2. 2

   Text file

   Open the tab-delimited export in Excel and save it as CSV

3. 3

   Antimicrobe

   Map sources and units once. First isolate, 30 isolate and intermediate rules applied

4. 4

   Antibiogram

   House-wide, urine, blood and unit tables, each with a rule receipt

LabPro, the Export Tool and Antimicrobe compared

WHONET is the other free route and many labs keep it for this job. The practical differences, including running it on a Mac, are on the WHONET alternative page. Labs with other instruments will find the same comparison on BD EpiCenter antibiogram software and VITEK 2 antibiogram software.

Does the MicroScan antibiogram follow CLSI M39?

It can. Beckman says LabPro generates antibiogram reports according to CLSI M39-A4, the 2014 edition, and the Export Tool instructions ask you to set the Epidemiology Duplicate Isolate time limit to 365 days and Any Source. That is the M39 first isolate rule: one isolate per patient per species per year, whatever the specimen.

Three things still need a check. M39 is now in its 5th edition (2022), which adds guidance on data verification, multifacility reports and long-term care. The 30 isolate threshold is a matter of how you read and present the output. And the report has to use the interpretations your lab released to the chart. If technologists edit results in the LIS rather than in LabPro, the two disagree.

The rule receipt that prints with every Antimicrobe export lists the rules applied and the isolate counts before and after de-duplication, which is the page a CAP inspector or a new stewardship physician asks for.

Where AlertEX and LabPro-MBT fit

LabPro AlertEX checks results against rules your lab sets and flags atypical ones before release, such as a resistance phenotype that needs confirmation. LabPro-MBT is the software in Beckman's DxM Trio package, which pairs the DxM MicroScan WalkAway with the Bruker MALDI Biotyper so identification and susceptibility results report from one platform. Both work on one patient result at a time.

The antibiogram works on the year. Better individual results make a better antibiogram, but none of these tools replaces the annual cumulative report for the medical staff. An antibiogram built from a plain export also survives an instrument change, a second AST platform after a merger and a move to a new LIS, because the rules live in the report tool rather than in instrument software.

Which plan fits a MicroScan lab

A single hospital lab producing the annual house-wide report and a few source cuts needs the Lab plan: $249 a month for 1 facility, 25,000 isolates a year and 2 seats, with cuts by source and period, CLSI breakpoints and CSV and print exports. It is bought by card and there is no implementation fee.

A stewardship program that also wants unit cuts, syndrome groups, quarterly trends and MDRO counts, or up to three facilities, uses Stewardship at $749 a month. A lab that produces antibiograms for outreach clients such as nursing homes and urgent care groups, which the Export Tool handles one template at a time, fits Network at $2,400 a month for up to 12 facilities.

Every limit is on the pricing page. Labs with outreach clients will find the per-client setup in antibiogram software for reference labs.

What this does not do

• It does not connect to the WalkAway, the DxM or LabPro directly. It reads exported files, as often as you choose to export them
• It does not read raw MIC values or reinterpret them. It uses the S, I and R your lab released, so breakpoint changes are made in LabPro and the LIS
• It does not replace LabPro for instrument management, AlertEX rules or result release
• It does not submit to NHSN or any public health system