EHI’s industry news roundup 07.03.08
E-Health Insider’s industry news round up for the week ending 7 March 2008 featuring supplier news and appointments. Supplier news Zebra helps make patient ID a priority Zebra Technologies has announced a partnership with Tracline, to help hospitals fulfill National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) directives. Tracline, a specialist healthcare IT supplier, will use Zebra’s wristband […]
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Safety now number one priority for CfH
Professor Michael Thick, the chief clinical officer for Connecting for Health, explains how the agency has made patient safety its number one concern.
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NPSA issues spec for electronic blood tracking
The National Patient Safety Agency has unveiled new measures to help improve the safety of blood transfusions, including the initial specification for an electronic tracking system to ensure the right patient is matched with the right blood product. The NPSA has worked with Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) and the Chief Medical Officer’s National Blood […]
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Smart sponges to reduce surgical accidents in US
A new barcode system used on surgical sponges will be trialled by the Veterans’ Administration West Los Angeles Health Care Centre this month to improve patient safety. The system is designed to prevent used sponges being left in patients after surgical operations. The developers of the smart sponge say it has the potential to prevent thousands […]
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Trusts urged to move faster with e-prescribing
Trusts are being urged to move forward faster with e-prescribing and the use of robotics to automate hospital pharmacies by the leader of the Healthcare Commission’s medicines management review. Review lead, Julia Sonander, was speaking to E-Health Insider following publication of comparative assessments on medicines management for all 173 acute hospital trusts in England. Eighteen hospital […]
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Patient safety becomes priority for NHS IT
The NHS National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has worked with Connecting for Health to build a rigorous system of safety checks which may, if necessary, delay product release, a conference has heard. Clive Flashman, head of the national learning and reporting system at the NPSA, outlined extensive work done to a conference in London this […]
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Sentinel enables Sedgefield PCT to log incidents online
Sedgefield Primary Care Trust is reported to have seen a dramatic increase in the reporting of patient safety incidents since the introduction of a web-based reporting tool twelve months ago. Since the PCT started using a web-based incident reporting and reporting tool called Sentinel it has seen a 500% increase in patient safety incident reporting. […]
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Wristband risk to patient safety highlighted
A drive to raise awareness of the importance of patients wearing hospital wristbands should make barcode and RFID technology more effective and help prevent errors. The initiative launched this week by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) was discussed at a healthcare group meeting of Intellect, the trade association for the UK’s high tech industries. Chris Ranger, […]
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National patient safety database delivers first results
The National Patient Safety Agency has published its first report on patient safety incidents across the NHS in England and Wales using data from a new national patient safety database designed to help reduce adverse incidents and harm to patients. The report, ‘Building a memory: preventing harm, reducing risks and improving patient safety’, has been […]
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Tag team care
Colin Jervis of Kinetic Consulting examines some of the innovative ways that RFID tags are being used in patient care and health administration.
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