Wythenshawe uses barcodes to access records
- 13 November 2007
Wythenshawe Hospital, part of the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, has deployed new bar code scanners from Datalogic to digitally track and call up paper patient records from their new iPM patient administration system (PAS).
Staff at the hospital can now scan bar codes on paper patient record, which then automatically bring up the patient’s full electronic record.
The equipment was especially configured and fitted at the hospital by barcode specialists Kelgray.
Darren Wildman, sales manager for Kelgray, told E-Health Insider: “Wythenshawe had already been barcoding files on their previous paper-based system, and they wanted to use the same technology to eliminate the need for keyboard entry, in line with their new PAS, provided under the National Programme for IT.”
South Manchester went live with iSoft’s iPM PAS last December and wanted to use the barcode technology to help nurses, medical secretaries and clinicians keep track of their patients from admission to discharge.
Martin Hobson, IT infrastructure project manager for Wythenshawe Hospital, said: “The old manual process was prone to error, which can cause problems further down the line. Now, we can track patients through their records on our Lorenzo iPM system right from the beginning until they are fully discharged.”
Kelgray worked closely with Whytenshawe to ensure that once data was barcoded, it would interface with the PAS and display in all the right fields on the system when scanned – allowing all authorised users to track and store patient data from any hospital PC.
Wildman added: “We were aware that Whythenshawe had several systems storing all different sorts of notes and we wanted to centralise these into one main record which can be brought up from any hospital location. We configured the scanners so that they would ensure that they pick up all keyboard data and marry it up with the central iPM system as appropriate.”
Hobson explained: The scanner itself filters two different types of barcode so the information supplied to the application is correct. We would have had to manually re-label 10,000 patient records initially if this could not be done, and eventually over 250,000 if we had not had a viable bar coding solution. Relabelling would have cost a fortune, so the scanners have saved significant public money.”
Kelgray say that by improving the accuracy, availability and speed of collection of data hospitals can benefit from instant access to patient records, faster throughput and traceability of items such as samples and x-rays and other assets.
Charlie Trumpess, marketing manager at Datalogic Scanning, said: “The way that Wythenshawe are using our scanners shows that barcode scanning can deliver almost unlimited benefits in the health sector. Many NHS trusts are now looking to move to these types of solutions, in line with government recommendations and this is one of many great examples to encourage them to investigate further.”
Links
South Manchester switches on PAS from CSC
