Barcodes for patients win a top award (From Bicester Advertiser)
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Barcodes for patients win a top award
9:20am Friday 27th July 2012 in News
A CONTROVERSIAL barcode scanning system which identifies patients at Oxfordshire’s hospitals has won a national safety award.
It is hoped the system, which can request tests from a patient’s bedside electronically, could almost completely rid the hospital departments of paper records.
The hand-held scanning technology combines two types of technology, the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and Positive Patient Identification (PPID).
When the EPR was rolled out late last year, it was beset with problems, including details of patient’s appointments going missing and problems with checking patients in.
But the Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) has now been awarded the National Patient Safety award for ‘Technology and IT to improve Patient Safety’ for the design of the so called ‘electronic radiology & laboratory medicine order communications system’.
Dr Paul Altmann, chief clinical information officer at the OUH said on the busiest days, the labs at the OUH can be sent up to 1,500 requests and in January alone, more than 35,000 were received.
He said: “We are delighted to be recognised in this way, especially within six months of going live with the system.”
