Microsoft helps clamp down on fake meds
A Europe-wide system for clamping down on counterfeit medicines moved a step closer this week with the selection of Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform and Solidsoft to develop a new system for checking pharmaceutical authenticity.
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Nottingham deploys Bloodhound
Great Ormond Street barcodes wristbands
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust has rolled out barcoded wristbands from Dakota Healthcare. The wristband system, which fully integrates with the trust’s existing iSoft iPM patient administration system, and is GS1 standard compliant, provides patient verification including NHS Number, hospital identification number, patient name and date of birth. The trust said that […]
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US study finds barcodes make meds safer
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine has concluded that using barcodes as a verification technology with an electronic medication administration system is "an important intervention to improve medication safety." Researchers observed more than 14,000 medication administrations and 3,000 order requests at an un-named academic medical centre that was implementing barcode eMAR. They […]
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Barcoded wristbands compulsory by 2011
The Information Standards Board for Health and Social Care has called for patients to wear barcoded wristbands and for trusts that do not comply by July 2011 to be penalised. An advanced notification of a new information standard has been sent out by the ISB that would define the procedures necessary to add barcodes to patient wristbands […]
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European drugs to carry barcodes
Medicines sold across Europe will have to carry barcodes and other improved security mechanisms, under proposals unveiled by the European Commission to crack down on counterfeit drugs. The Commission says it aims to use technology to enable “total traceability" of all medicines bought in pharmacies or online. Even with the new measures, some repackaging will […]
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Great Ideas
Portsmouth deploys electronic document management
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust has fully deployed an electronic document management system, using barcodes to store information on the location of paper records that have to be kept for legal reasons. The trust deployed the EDM system in May this year, after two years of piloting. Speaking at the Smart Healthcare expo in London earlier […]
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New blood tracking system used across Europe
An image-based blood tracking data capture solution is helping to save lives and reduce waste in hospitals across Europe. BloodTrack Courier, a sophisticated kiosk PC, controls and logs access to blood storage refrigerators in hospitals. The system has recently been enhanced by a 5080 image engine from Hand Held Products. BloodTrack Courier was developed by […]
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Wythenshawe uses barcodes to access records
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 […]
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