Evaluation of the Yellow IRIS. An automated method for urinalysis.

The authors evaluated the Yellow IRIS automated urinalysis instrument (International Remote Imaging Systems, Chatsworth, CA 91311) in terms of its analytic performance as well as its ease of use. The Yellow IRIS is a system using automated intelligence microscopy (AIM), coupled with a dipstick reader and specific gravity module. The instrument can handle up to 30 specimens per hour in the authors' setting as compared with 10 specimens per hour using a full manual urinalysis coupled with microscopic examination. The authors conclude that the Yellow IRIS performed better than the manual method in terms of precision, linearity, and throughput. In addition, the diagnostic yield using this system in terms of abnormal results was higher than would have been picked up by manual analysis alone.