Abbott Launches New Instrument to Complete Family of ARCHITECT Immunochemistry...( CHICAGO July 21 /- ...),Health

CHICAGO, July 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry's Clinical Lab Expo in Chicago, Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced the launch of a new diagnostic instrument -- the ARCHITECT(R) c4000(R) clinical chemistry analyzer which performs diagnostic tests that monitor general health including a patient's levels of sodium, potassium, chloride and organ function.

The new ARCHITECT c4000 seamlessly integrates with Abbott's i1000SR immunoassay analyzer to form the ARCHITECT ci4100(TM), an automated analyzer that completes both immunoassay and chemistry tests on one platform. With these two products, Abbott now offers chemistry, immunoassay, and integrated diagnostic testing solutions to improve the performance and efficiency of laboratories of all sizes.

Abbott is the only company offering high, medium and low-volume integrated diagnostic testing solutions that leverage the same software, reagents and sample carriers. Standardizing to a single family of instruments like Abbott's ARCHITECT products gives labs the ability to optimize processes, minimize errors, and reduce result variability, which is becoming increasingly important as clinicians rely more and more on laboratory diagnostics to guide their treatment decisions.

Abbott's family of ARCHITECT instruments generates accurate and equivalent results across instruments and labs, even at multiple sites, because these instruments share detection technologies, reagents, and software. This standardization is critical as hospitals and the Obama administration continue to emphasize the importance of capturing patient histories in electronic medical records. In a recent study of U.S. hospitals, 73 percent of health care decision makers and executives identified electronic medical records (E
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