Olympus UK has announced that the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford has won the top prize out of 130 entries at the prestigious 2007 Government Computing Awards for Innovation 2007.
Replacing traditional paper-based systems that are open to error, the system provides secure end-to-end electronic control of blood administration with the use of barcoded wristbands, ensuring safer transfusions, cutting costs and freeing up staff time.
Presenting the award, Government chief information officer John Suffolk said the judges were impressed by how the system dealt with a complex process in the challenging environment of a modern hospital.
The system was installed by the John Radcliffe Hospital, part of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, as a positive response to the introduction of the EU Blood Safety and Quality Regulations 2005, which meant that all EUhospitals must have systems in place to provide a comprehensive audit trail of blood units.
Barbara Cripps, the ORH’s project manager for the blood tracking project explained: “It’s great to receive recognition for what we believe is a wonderful system that provides numerous benefits to patients, clinicians and health service managers.
“The system also assists in managing blood stock by controlling staff access rights and managing the transportation of blood products around the Trust’s hospitals from arrival in the blood bank through to retrieval and delivery to the patient, allowing a complete electronic audit trail with full traceability of blood from arrival in the blood bank to safe transfusion to the right patient.”
The Olympus BloodTrack system has also made significant cost savings across the Trust. Barbara Cripps added: “The system reduces the blood transfusion process by around 50 minutes, from 131 minutes to just 81 minutes. This equates to staff time savings of £17.44 for each transfusion. As the Trust conducts approximately 30,000 transfusions per year, when this system is implemented in all sites across the Trust this will equate to time savings of around £523,200.”
