12th December 2019
by Edward Sheppard

Recent Questionnaires discovered that 88%1 of Clinicians would recommend the DTR Medical Biopsy Punch to a colleague as a result of its high performance and effectiveness. A Nurse Colposcopist at University Hospital of Durham was quoted “The instrument has transformed my Colposcopy practice; I am now getting biopsies first time.”

We are continuously receiving tremendous feedback about this product; “I love the Cervical Rotating Biopsy Punch. You can really notice the difference in how it performs so much, I do not have any problems using on more demanding patients. The product feels sharp like a hot knife through butter.” Gill Costello, Sister, Northwick

Our Biopsy Punch allows 95%1 of Clinicians to take an average of 2 biopsies successfully at first use. The top jaw, 4x stronger than titanium, provides you with first time sharpness ensuring a high-quality sample is taken.

Value-Based Benefits Experienced

With this concept in mind, both patient recall and discomfort can be significantly reduced when using the Cervical Rotating Biopsy Punch, as well as decreasing the waiting time for new patient referrals.  Consequently, for the healthcare provider value-based benefits are also experienced.

NHS England National Tariffs 2018-19 state that a first Colposcopy appointment costs clinics an average of £1592, with a single professional.  In some cases where multiple professionals are required this sum can rise to £1732. However, if a sample is inadequate, damaged or simply can’t be used to provide an accurate diagnosis; patients will be recalled back to the hospital for a follow up appointment at a later date.

Continuing, funding provided to hospitals for a recalled patient is significantly less than their first meeting with the Colposcopist, so much that it doesn’t cover the basic running costs of the appointment.  Therefore, not having to repeat the process of taking another biopsy to gain a better sample can save the hospital up to £992 each time. Our Cervical Rotating Biopsy Punch is proving to be the product of choice for getting a high quality sample at first use limiting the number of recalls.

Furthermore, more in depth clinician feedback looked at three areas when describing the functionality of our instrument, these included the quality of both the cut & biopsy taken, the similarity to description and the ease of removing the sample from the jaw. It was found that the total quantified at 86%1 being described as either good or very good by Clinicians and Consultants in these respected areas.

Improving Colposcopy Practice

It is widely recognised that delays in clinics inflict a heavy financial burden on the NHS, calculations show that every minute a clinic runs over it costs the Government an average of £8.652.  The majority in Colposcopy are often caused when a reusable Biopsy Punch is blunted during both its prolonged use in theatre and the sterilisation process, making it inadequate to take a high-quality sample for Pathology. This tends to increase the time an appointment takes with the Colposcopist, meaning they have to find an alternative. This in itself is time consuming and can often cause an appointment to run over.

Another dilemma clinics face when they experience blunted reusable instruments is having to rearrange appointments to a different day. Often delayed Colposcopy tends to have a collateral effect, such problems cause morning visits to run into the afternoon and so on. Therefore, patients later in the day may be asked to come back at a later date due to them not being able to fit them in. For example, if 4 patients were not seen by Colposcopy one day, this would cost the NHS upwards of £6502.

After thorough evaluation, we can conclude that our Biopsy Punch can help to save the clinic costs as well as helping it to run as smoothly as possible.

 

Focus on Environmental Impact

It is in all our best interest to ensure environmental impact is kept to a minimum. As part of an ongoing collaborative project with a leading Welsh University, a pioneering technique, known as biorefining, was used to create new low carbon technologies for both our products and our packaging. The Cervical Rotating Biopsy Punch was developed with environmental awareness in mind, 20% of the handle is made from corn starch, a recycled material.

Following on from this, through using life cycle analysis it is proven that this product has 2.8 times less of an environmental impact than other alternatives in the market, such as the metal Tischler Cervical Biopsy Punch and Baby Tischler Cervical Biopsy Punch. This stems from a variety of factors from the lightweight recyclable handle to the instrument using a lot less metal than other alternatives in the market.

 

Accurate Cervical Diagnosis Excels Growth of Biopsy Punch

Since mid-2018, there has been a dramatic increase in the growing number of hospitals now using the DTR Medical Single-use Cervical Rotating Biopsy Punch as their first-choice instrument, instead of traditional reusable alternatives. Colposcopy clinics in the UK report that Pathology laboratories are able to provide rapid diagnosis, usually with the first samples provided.

Each annum demand for the Biopsy Punch grows.  We have experienced a 77% increase in the global customer base of this instrument in the last 3 years. With a variety of hospitals using it as primary instrument as well as others who keep the product for more difficult cases, such as postmenopausal women and patients with a hardened cervix.

As a company we are fully aware of the growing strain and pressure being placed on our healthcare providers. We have made it our mission to support hospitals and clinics through delivering Single-use instruments that consistently produce both efficient and accurate health outcomes for patients and clinicians alike.

If you have not tried DTR Medical’s Cervical Rotating Biopsy Punch and require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at marketing@dtrmedical.com or +44 (0) 1792 7979

 

1 DTR Medical Evaluation Questionnaire Data (June 2018 to October 2019)

2 NHS England. (2019). National Tariff 2018-19

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