Abergele Hospital has implemented a BloodTrack OnDemand system from Olympus so that staff can obtain blood from stocks held at the hospital rather than from its main blood bank, five miles away.
The hospital, which is part of Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust, has seen immediate time and cost savings from the system, which enables staff to access and monitor blood stocks through remote computer access and intelligent storage fridges.
Before OnDemand, a biomedical scientist from the main blood bank at the trust’s Glan Clwyd site had to visit the hospital up to three times a week to check blood stocks. Now, just one visit a week is necessary.
Additionally, fewer units have to be transported from the main blood bank and more blood is on hand for urgent transfusions.
“The installation has already made a tremendous impact here,” said Rachael Surridge, trust haematology and blood transfusion manager laboratory manager. “Just one example is in surgery, where they just could not have coped with the increase in workload without the OnDemand system.”
Olympus says the installation at Abergele is the UK’s first “remote allocation” blood issuing system. OnDemand allows unallocated blood to be stored outside a blood bank. When blood is required, it is automatically dispensed, assigned and labelled for a specific patient at its storage refrigerator.
OnDemand now forms part of the Olympus BloodTrack suite, which is intended to give hospitals and rural communities safer and more flexible access to blood supplies, by controlling access to blood refrigerators.
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