The Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester has begun rolling out a blood tracking system from Msoft across 20 of its wards.
MSoft will provide a web-based, electronic tracking system that will control staff access to blood fridges and provide a bedside management system to match barcoded blood units to barcoded patient wristbands.
Dr Shaun Webb, consultant biomedical scientist at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, said: “We initially went through a tender process and chose MSoft because of the simplicity of their system for the end user.”
The trust has carried out trials in its heameatology tranfusion wards in recent weeks to make sure that the technology is suitable and to allow staff to familiarise themselves with the hand-held devices that will be used with the system.
Webb added: “There are two particularly important benefits to the system. The first one is the ability to free up nurse time. Before, we would have needed a second nurse to be on hand to check that the right blood was going to the right patient. The MSoft technology removes this need for double-checking at the bedside.
“Secondly, and even more importantly, the systems we have introduced enhance patient safety because the electronic system is built to be failsafe.”
The blood tracking system also provides in-depth auditing of all bloods across every stage of the transfusion process to help to make sure that the right blood reaches the correct patient.
The trust is now working to train 1,000 nurses, porters , doctors and other staff to have the 20 wards – which exlude A&E and maternity – live before the end of the month.
Neil Patterson, operations and sales director at MSoft, said: “We are looking forward to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital going fully live and playing a key role in ensuring the successful ongoing training of its staff.
“We know from our work with many other hospitals around the UK just how much of an impact our systems are having in terms of efficiency, cost effectiveness and, most crucially of all, patient safety.”
Following the implementation at the Royal Hampshire County Hopsital, MSoft will work to implement the system at other sites run by Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust next year.
The trust joins Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust, and the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust in implementing the MSoft’s blood tracking system.
Link: MSoft