Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust has implemented Episys's Ultimate Labelling solution to improve the labelling of medicines and medical supplies across the organisation.
The Queen Alexandra Hospital site is currently undergoing a major redevelopment to create a modern and 'fit-for-purpose' hospital, which is due for completion by the end of 2009.
Its emergency department is said to be one of the busiest in the UK, treating more than 100,000 patients each year.
The Medical Assessment Unit (MAU) and the Surgical Assessment Unit (SAU) provide rapid diagnostic assessment for patients admitted as emergencies.
These can then be directed to the clinical areas most appropriate for their condition.
The trust is also home to the Wessex Renal and Transplant Unit and it holds Cancer Beacon Status for head and neck cancer services.
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust decided to introduce a labelling system to meet a number of different challenges.
The unit at the Queen Alexandra Hospital is a Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)-licensed unit.
It provides aseptically prepared items, such as pre-filled syringes for pain control analgesia and for intravenous antibiotics.
As the organisation is a licensed unit, it can provide products to other trusts throughout the country that require its services.
Robert Lucas, principal pharmacist for technical services at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, said: 'There are a lot of units and hospitals throughout the country that don't have the staffing levels required to provide all the necessary products.
'We sell our services to any of our trusts within the NHS that require our products and when we sell these services, the income is helping towards the cost of our trust and the cost of services provided,' he added.
One of the main challenges with labelling for aseptic preparation is that the products made tend to be quite small, such as labels for syringes and small-volume injections.
Lucas continued: 'There is a legal requirement for the amount of information that you need to put on these labels.
'It tends to be quite a challenge to get all the information onto the product in a font that is readable.
'In addition to that, we have to satisfy the requirements of the MHRA so that the system we use is actually validated properly.
'We need to have a system where we know all the data is secure in the database that we use.
'It is also important that access to the data is controlled so that no unauthorised individuals can access it and change information.
'We needed to ensure that every time we print a label, it prints out all the required details accurately,' he said.
The trust has to consider that these drugs are sometimes going directly to patients at home or that, alternatively, they are going to a ward environment.
Lucas added: 'We need to make sure that the information on the labels is correct.
'There are lots of drugs with similar-sounding names and drugs can be used in different ways, in different dosages,' he said.
Although the organisation had previously operated a labelling system, it did not have any form of reporting to let it know what labels it had produced.
There was also no real form of access or password control.
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust selected the Episys Ultimate Labelling solution as it overcomes these shortfalls.
Lucas said: 'It has a very good access-control system and it reports everything that we do to the reporting log.
'This means that we can always go back to any of that information and check what we have done and what has been produced,' he added.
The trust is using the Ultimate system to label all of its aseptically prepared syringes and devices.
These include patient-controlled analgesia syringes, intravenous antibiotics and intravenous feed solutions, all of which contain a huge amount of information on the labelling.
It is also used for cytotoxic drugs and its over-label tablet packs.
In addition to the labelling software, the trust also purchased printers from Episys.
Lucas continued: 'It's important that we don't have any downtime with printing because a lot of work we do is an instant response.
'We need to make sure that the system we have got is very reliable and, also, if there are any problems, we need to get our system back online as soon as possible,' he said.
According to the trust, it saw immediate benefits following the introduction of the technology.
Lucas said: 'It's enabled us to keep a check on all the production that we actually do.
'A good thing about Episys is the documentation that they provide.
'We were presented with very good IQ/OQ documentation, which proved the actual system itself before we actually bought it.
'It also enabled us to do all our performance qualification so we could actually demonstrate to the MHRA that the system that we use is very reproducible.
'We recently went through an MHRA inspection of our unit and they were very happy with the system and the security it provides,' he added.
The transfer to the new system was said to be simple as the Episys technology was user friendly and training new users was straightforward.
One of the other aspects of the printing system is the ability to produce headers and footers.
Lucas said: 'With the headers and footers system that Episys uses, it enables us to print to the two labels that we use on batch documentation so we know we have a split between the print of one batch to the print of another batch.
'By using that information on the batch sheet, we know who's printed the label and when they printed it,' he added.
The trust has also purchased Episys's Ultimate Worksheet module.
Lucas continued: 'Most of the production units within the NHS use Microsoft Word to produce all our batch documentation.
'Previously, we produced authorised master documents that are stored as hardcopy on file and when we needed to make a batch, we photocopied the Word document.
'From there, we would have to populate that document with variable information such as batch number, expiry date etc.
'However, with the worksheet module, at the time we populate the worksheet with this information, it prepares the labels for us at the same time.
'This will avoid a lot of transcription by operators and, not only does this save time but, more importantly, it should dramatically reduce errors as very little transcription is required,' he said.
Also, it is said to be difficult for the trust to secure a Word document within a system.
Lucas explained: 'Different people have access to the same computers as it's easy to alter a document.
'By using Episys, we can actually lock down that format within worksheets, so there are only certain people that have access to a particular design.
'We're now happy that no one can inadvertently change a worksheet, which could have critical consequences,' he said.
The trust has a range of approximately 300 to 400 different products that are supplied to customers.
Lucas continued: 'We need to make sure we are producing these labels with the correct codes and reference codes so they go to the correct customer.
'We must be able to differentiate between the product label that one customer wants compared to a label that another customer wants, so it's important we control the process,' he added.
The trust has also purchased the Ultimate Approvals module to speed up the control of its new product business.
The module enables the trust to issue customers with a label electronically and to obtain feedback much quicker than having to send them a hardcopy of the label either by post or fax.
According to Lucas, the trust is going to consider colour labelling in the future.
