Hammersmith chooses Technidata for blood transfusion

Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust has signed a contract with Technidata to replace its two existing blood transfusion systems with TD-BloodBank, a component of the firm’s TD-Synergy integrated Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).

The trust has also signed up to pilot Pocket TD-BloodBank, a portable version of the software that provides access from networked and handheld devices, whether onsite or remotely.

The project is due to go live on 31 March 2006. Financial details of the contract were not disclosed.

According to Technidata TD-BloodBank includes comprehensive EU safety-compliant ‘vein-to-vein’ features for automated blood testing, tracking, transport, transfusion and sample/patient matching.

Technidata’s TD-Bloodbank solution was chosen following an OJEU tender and evaluation process. The system was chosen over five other blood management systems including several LSP-recommended solutions.

Laurent Debenedetti, ICT director, Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Various competing products were put forward to us, but in the end we selected Technidata because it was a more modern solution and offered a superior platform at a similar price. From an ICT perspective I prefer Technidata’s technology, but even more importantly, our pathology users found TD-BloodBank’s advanced functionality extremely close to their needs.”

The Technidata system has been designed to operate on Unix and/or Intel platforms and SQL and Oracle databases. It supports a single log-in environment.

Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust is an integrated, multi-site facility that comprises Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea, and Ravenscourt Park Hospitals. The pathology department works for Hammersmith NHS Trust as well as Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Together the three sites process 32 million general laboratory tests and 150,000 blood transfusion requests, and handle over 65,000 blood and blood products each year – a number that is projected to grow by 5-15% annually over the next five years.

As a matter of urgency, the Trust needed a more robust and flexible blood management system that could integrate with its various existing systems, handle a rapidly increasing workload and support the ever-growing complexity of demanding new UK and EU hemovigilence and transfusion safety regulations.

Tony MacDonald, pathology systems manager at the trust said: “Above all, we wanted a modern system with a relational database and web-enabled capabilities. With one of our old blood transfusion systems, the hardware had reached the end of its lifespan, and the other system had become too expensive to maintain."

McDonald added: “Technidata’s ability to integrate with our LIMS and our multiple hospital information systems will now enable us to gather all relevant test information together into patient-centric files for the convenience of caregivers. It will also give us the ease and flexibility we need to develop more complex management reports.”

Dave Simm, General Manager for Technidata UK commented: “Technidata are delighted to welcome Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital as new users of our TD-Synergy BloodBank solution. We are particularly pleased to have been chosen in the face of such an exhaustive OJEU evaluation process."