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BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO®

Automated System for Faster Blood Culture

The first fully automated blood culture system, helping to refine and redesign laboratory workflow to maximize efficiency, while providing the fastest clinically impactful results on the market.1,2

  

Disclaimer: Product availability varies by country. Please consult your local bioMérieux representative for product availability in your country.

FDA Approved.

System Overview

BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® ushers in a new dimension of blood culture detection. The system provides fully automated detection of the presence of microbes in bottles of blood and sterile body fluids. Almost endlessly versatile, BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® fits into various lab sizes and types, including labs outside the routine microbiology lab. The latest example of ingenuity in automation, it reduces hands-on time for increased lab efficiency. These benefits can be further boosted through highly sophisticated MAESTRIA™ software that provides relevant information from multiple instruments and your LIS at your fingertips, when and where you need it. For these reasons and more, BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® seamlessly integrates your blood culture workflow to provide efficient and actionable results to help you achieve better patient outcomes.

  • Automated efficiency: leverage skilled resources where most valuable
  • Fast results: thermal stability & ultra-sensitive algorithms shorten time to positivity
  • Modular for various lab sizes: scalable to meet your volume needs
  • Real-time blood level detection: act immediately & monitor collection practices
  • Active monitoring: receive real-time notifications & data

   

Ultimate Workflow Efficiency

Your laboratory faces some critical challenges these days: higher volumes, the need for fast turnaround time and the need to use staff resources effectively. Clinicians and their patients count on you meeting these challenges. The intelligent automation of BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® ensures your workflow couldn’t be easier.

  • The loading area can take up to forty bottles at a time
  • So straightforward that anyone can load
    • Automated, motion activated “Set and Forget” loading
    • Intuitive touchscreen offers enhanced ease-of-use
    • Barcode issues corrected on main screen
  • Advanced robotics for automated loading and unloading
    • System knows when bottles are loaded
    • Troubleshoots problems (e.g., a fallen bottle)
  • 360° Smart scanning technology
    • Recognizes bottle and patient accession labels
    • Senses and tracks blood fill level on all bottles
    • Ease of tracking and reporting
  • Negative bottles
    • Automatically unloaded into the removable waste bin
    • Disposal is completely safe with shatter resistant bottles

Smart scanning: rotates and photographs entire bottle.

Scalability for Any Size Laboratory

BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® is versatile and scalable for almost any size laboratory – you can even place systems in other locations outside of the routine microbiology lab.

  • Load up to 428 bottles in one instrument
  • Scalability to 1712 with a single user interface

   

Improve Visibility of Your Testing with MAESTRIA™

Fully integrated MAESTRIA™ middleware, so you connect to other bioMérieux instruments and your LIS to gain a “control tower” perspective to ensure information flows smoothly. This eases the administrative burden and optimizes workflow, so you manage higher volumes with your existing resources and free your time for more skill-intensive work.

  • Get the whole picture: information at your fingertips 24/7.
  • Consolidate patient data for easier and more powerful reporting.
    • Total traceability of blood culture workflow
    • Comprehensive blood volume reporting
    • Quality indicator tracking
  • Improves clinical relevance with real-time statistics & quality metrics.
  • Contamination tracking further improved with integrated VITEK® Mass Spec and VITEK® 2 results.

References

1. Destache et al. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2023 Dec;107(4):116085

2. Halperin at al. Microbiol Spectr. 2022 Oct 26;10(5):e0143622.

Blood Culture Media

  • BACT/ALERT® Culture Media Bottles

    Innovative & Optimized Culture Media

    BACT/ALERT® culture media offers a comprehensive range of media bottles to ensure the recovery of a wide variety of microorganisms including bacteria, mycobacteria, and fungi – including our next generation Fastidious Antimicrobial Neutralization Plus media (FAN® PLUS) offering optimized time to detection and recovery. 

Services & Support

System Services

Systems are a major investment for your lab. Night and day, you depend on them to help you provide clinicians with fast, reliable results for better patient care. With System Services from bioMérieux: maximize routine lab workflow, cover increased productivity needs, and deliver high quality patient results confidently and continuously.

Specs & Resources

Technical Specifications

Size:

 HeightWidthDepthLength
 incmincmincmincm
Instrument (Door Closed)77.2*196.0*28.773.035.891.0  
Instrument (Door Open)77.2*196.0*37.094.065.0165.0  
Shipping Crate89.0226.136.091.448.0121.9  
Shipping Crate Ramp      85.0215.9

*Instrument Height dimension does not include optional Warning Light Tower.

Instrument Weight:

 lbkg
Total Shipping Weight1084491
Weight of Instrument (empty)643292
Weight of Instrument (with bottles)707320
Instrument Packaging Weight441200

VILINK® Configuration

Refer to the latest VILINK® documentation for connectivity instructions. The BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® instrument must be connected to VILINK® for the instrument to be installed.

MAESTRIA

Resources

BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® Brochure