The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has used an electronic blood-tracking system from Olympus to improve patient safety.
The Olympus Bloodtrack system provides full end-to-end control and audit of the blood-transfusion process with correct cross-checking of the patient's barcoded wristband with the blood at the bedside.
This has enabled the trust to comply with NPSA (National Patient Safety Agency) guidelines for patient identification.
Prior to the EU Blood Safety Directive 20051 becoming UK law, the trust undertook an audit of its then paper-based transfusion process, only to discover just 70 per cent of transfusion records were available in patients' case-notes.
The trust sought to amend the process to ensure the directive's traceability requirements were met.
Bloodtrack uses the Positive Patient Identification (PPI) system which consists of modular software packages using two-dimensional barcoding and wireless Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).
The wireless technology ensures any non-conformities are alerted directly back to the laboratory in real-time, while an audible alarm is sounded if the barcode-labelled blood does not match the patient's barcoded wristband.
Since all labels are now demand-printed via the PDA following patient wristband and staff identification-badge scanning, laboratory-sample rejection rates during the cross-matching process are now minimal.
Helen Howlett, IT project manager at the trust, said: 'Previously we had a 10 per cent sample rejection rate due to illegible handwriting on sample labels.
'We now have a four per cent rate which means we rarely have to re-bleed patients and ensures a highly efficient process.
'Demand printing also adds an extra level of safety due to a 15 second timeout on the PDA.
'Labels can only be printed at the bedside of one patient at a time, thereby ensuring no opportunity for cross-matching errors.' The introduction of the Bloodtrack system across two hospital sites and 42 wards took just five months.
It is also anticipated that future financial savings may be made by virtually eliminating blood wastage through controlled and monitored access to blood stock and tracking its movement around the trust.
Howlett added: 'In fact, nurses are already finding additional applications for the ID Badge / wristband system, such as blood glucose monitoring.' Bloodtrack's electronic issue functionality has reduced blood usage in other hospitals by 20 per cent.
The system may free nursing staff currently involved in the transfusion process for other key tasks.
