DIAGNOSTIC KIT WITH A MEMORY STORING TEST STRIP CALIBRATION CODES AND RELATED METHODS

摘要

A diagnostic kit for measuring a characteristic of a fluid sample includes a test strip (e.g., a disposable blood glucose test strip) and device (e.g., a hand - held meter) for measuring a property (e.g., an optical or electrochemical property) of the test strip. The device also calculates, based on the measured property of the test strip, a characteristic (e.g., blood glucose concentration or INR) of a fluid sample applied to the test strip. Stored in a memory of the device are test strip calibration codes that represent geometric regions (e.g., polygonal or hexagonal geometric regions) of a multi- dimensional calibration parameter space. The test strip calibration codes and geometric regions are distributed across the multi-dimensional calibration parameter space such that a quantization error of assigning one of test strip calibration codes to the test strip is optimally reduced. Also, a method for optimally associating test strip calibration codes to calibration parameters for use in such a diagnostic kit that includes first optimally distributing a plurality of test strip calibration codes and geometric regions represented thereby across a multi- dimensional calibration parameter space. The distribution is conducted such that a quantization error of assigning one of the test strip calibration codes to t he test strip of the diagnostic kit is optimally reduced. The method also includes storing the distributed test strip calibration codes in a memory of the diagnostic kit.