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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CfH seeks acute trust for blood barcoding pilot
NHS Connecting for Health and the National Patient Safety Agency have announced they are looking for an acute trust to pilot IT specifications for electronic blood tracking. A small, non-teaching hospital trust is sought for the pilot, which will begin in March 2007, to evaluate the IT guidelines developed by the NPSA. The NPSA’s aim […]
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RFID records to be implanted in 280 patients
RFID implant manufacturers VeriChip have announced that 280 patients from the New Jersey area are to have health records chips inserted under their skin as part of a trial into the use of the technology to manage long-term conditions. Volunteers who are patients of the Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, NJ and who suffer from chronic […]
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Doctors test out RFID system for handovers
Doctors at the Birmingham’s Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust are testing the use of RFID technology for patient handovers. David Morgan, consultant ENT surgeon at the trust, who is also surgical safety adviser to the National Patient Safety Agency, explained the system to the Clinical Care Computing conference in London last week. Birmingham Heartlands […]
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Germany’s team
The World Cup is not Frankfurt’s only major event this summer. Phillipp Grätzel reports from ITeG, the German healthcare IT industry conference.
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Digital hospital
EHI looks at how a futuristic hospital in Norway can show what benefits an integrated approach to communications can bring to patient care.
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Birmingham and Solihull extends patient RFID tagging
Birmingham’s Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust has announced that it is to further expand its trial of tagging surgical patients with RFID wristbands. E-Health Insider reported in October 2004 the trials of a tagging system in the ENT department of the Heart of England trust, then called Birmingham Heartlands and Solihill NHS Trust. Patients arriving […]
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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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Cisco makes new medical connections
Cisco Systems Inc. has announced a series of new applications that are now available as part of its Medical Grade Network, providing new solutions to aid clinician communications and workflow. The new Cisco Clinical Connection Suite consists of four integrated clinical solutions – Nurse Call, Patient Monitoring, Location-Based Services and Collaborative Care – designed to […]
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Doctor tagged with RFID worries about privacy
An A&E doctor and CIO who has had an RFID tag implanted into his arm on which his medical reference number is encoded has expressed concerns about lack of privacy standards and erosion of his anonymity. John Halamka, chief information officer at Harvard Medical School, had the VeriChip tag encased in an unbreakable glass capsule […]
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