Automatic chemical analyzer

Claim 1

In an automatic chemical analyzer having means for containing a sample to be analyzed, means for forming a reaction solution comprised of a mixture of the sample and a reagent corresponding to an analysis item, and means for analyzing the analysis item in the above mixture and wherein an output is provided in response to a quantitative analysis result obtained by comparing a measured reaction of said solution to a calibration curve corresponding to a respective analysis item, the improvement of: means for storing the identity of a plurality of analysis items; means for storing data indicating the time of a previous calibration of the calibration curve for each of the identified analysis items; means for storing data corresponding to a predetermined time interval following the calibration of each calibration curve, said time interval corresponding to the time from a previous calibration that the calibration curve can be reliably substantially effective for analysis; control means including counting means for checking periodically the time interval remaining for each previous calibration of the calibration curve for a respective analysis item; and means governed by said counting means for outputting data representative of the reliability of each checked calibration curve.

Claim 6

A method of determining the reliability of each of a plurality of different calibration curves in an automatic chemical analyzer wherein measurement of a reaction solution comprised of a sample of the item to be analyzed and at least one reagent analysis item is compared to a respective calibration curve, said method comprising: containing samples of the items to be analyzed; storing data representative of the identify of a plurality of analysis items; forming the reaction solution comprised of a mixture of said sample and a reagent corresponding to a respective analysis item; quantitatively analyzing the analysis items in accordance with a corresponding calibration curve and producing output data in response to the analysis result; storing first data for each of the plurality of analysis items indicative of the times of the previous calibration of a respective calibration curve; storing second data for each of said plurality of analysis items corresponding to a predetermined time interval during which a respective calibration curve is substantially reliably effective following a calibration; checking the remaining effective reliability time in accordance with the stored first and second data for each stored analysis item; and outputting data representative of the reliability of the calibration curve being checked.

Claim 7

A method of determining the reliability of each of a plurality of different calibration curves in an automatic chemical analyzer wherein measurement of a reaction solution comprised of a sample of the item to be analyzed and at least one reagent analysis item is compared to a respective calibration curve, said method comprising: containing samples of the items to be analyzed; storing data representative of the identify of a plurality of analysis items; forming the reaction solution comprised of a mixture of said sample and a reagent corresponding to a respective analysis item; quantitatively analyzing the analysis items in accordance with a corresponding calibration curve and producing output data in response to the analysis result; storing first data for each of the plurality of analysis items indicative of the times of the previous calibration of a respective calibration curve; storing second data for each of said plurality of analysis items corresponding to a predetermined time interval during which a respective calibration curve is substantially reliably effective following a calibration; checking the remaining effective reliability time in accordance with the stored first and second data for each stored analysis item; and outputting data representative of the reliability of the calibration curve being checked.