Case Study - Wythenshawe NHS

Datalogic GryphonTM Desk Handheld Reader Keeps NHS Case Study: Wythenshawe NHS Patient Records in Good Order. The Wythenshawe is a public hospital in Manchester, a University Hospital which is also part of the South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. It's a major teaching hospital Trust providing services at Wythenshawe Hospital and Withington Community Hospital. The Trust is also a centre for education and research.

The Challenge: The old manual, paper-based process of entering patient details was very prone to error, which could cause problems further down the line. It was also timeconsuming and could take time for doctors and nurses to recall patient details and to refill prescriptions. NHS Public hospitals in the UK are charged with introducing new processes and supporting technologies to improve the patient care as well as reduce costs to ease the burden on general taxation.

The Solution: Staff at the hospital can now scan bar codes on the paper patient record, which then automatically brings up the entire patient’s electronic record. The equipment was specifically configured and fitted at the hospital by bar code IT specialists Kelgray.

Darren Wildman, sales manager for Kelgray, said “Wythenshawe had already storing all different sorts of notes and we wanted to help centralise these into one main record which can be brought up from any hospital location. We configured the bar code readers so that they would ensure that they pick up all keyboard data and marry it up with the central iPM system as appropriate.”

South Manchester used iSoft’s iPM PAS which tracks patients from admission to discharge. Martin Hobson, IT Infrastructure Project Manager explained: “The Wythenshawe Hospital uses bar code readers from Datalogic Scanning. Nurses, medical secretaries and other clinicians all use the readers connected to their PCs, to scan the bar codes on patient records, and this automatically brings up all of the patient’s electronic record, completely doing away with manual data entry of details.”

Hobson continued, “We chose Datalogic Scanning because of their excellent reputation and the resilience of the Gryphon Desk Readers. The readers have worked without any problems at all. Datalogic and its Quality Partner did an excelent job supporting us with the programming of the readers. We couldn’t have done it without them.” The Results Kelgray say that by improving the accuracy, availability and speed of collection of data hospitals can benefit from instant access to patient records, much faster throughput and traceability of items such as samples and x-rays and other assets.

“We chose Datalogic Scanning because of their very good reputation and the resilience of the Gryphon readers. The readers have worked without any problems at all. Datalogic and Kelgray did a fantastic job supporting us with the programming of the readers".

Case Study - Apoteket

In Sweden, Apoteket is the sole retailer for medicinal products. That goes for both prescription and over-the-counter medicine. Apoteket is owned by the state and is non profit-orientated. This means that the foremost task is to ensure that each patient gets the right medication or self-medication product needed, in the right quantity and at the right time. It also means that all medications can be obtained, without variations in price, anywhere in Sweden.

Apoteket has 28 production facilities that fill prescriptions to more than 150,000 patients who reside in special care housing such as retirement homes. Most of these patients are upwards of 65 years old. Apoteket bought 100 Gryphon™ hand-held scanners, both cordless and tethered, from Datalogic that are used at these various production facilities.

The decision was made to invest in new scanners based on the fact that Apoteket was having problems with the reading range of the cordless scanners they were using at the time. The Gryphon™ instinctive hand-held reader was chosen over scanners from their previous supplier primarily because of its ergonomics - it is lightweight and feels good in the hand.

“For those who work in production, ergonomics is very important,” says Peter Skarin, Technical Manager at Apoteket RE Dos. “Ergonomics, together with good performance, are the crucial factors that make it smart to use bar codes in our production.”

The hand-held reader is used to read the bar code on each type of medicine (each article number) in the production of individual dose packaging. This is to make certain that the right medicine is put into the right package.

At the production facility in Solna, Sweden, individual doses are packaged in bags and trays for about 8000 patients in all. It is most common that the patients get their medications filled for two-week periods. Every order is entered into the computer system where it is then checked by the pharmacist to verify that it is correct. In the cases where the order is thought to be incorrect, the pharmacist checks with the special care facility that placed the order and the doctor who wrote the prescription.

The order then moves into production where the medicine is packaged in individual bags or trays according to the prescription. The most common medications are kept in large machines that portion out the right medicine in right dose. Other medicines are kept in small boxes that are each marked with a bar code which is read by the Gryphon™ hand held reader each time a prescription is filled. When a prescription is filled that is not one of the more common medications, it is done manually by a pharmacist and an assistant.

Before the order is sent away to the special care facility, it is checked by several inspectors. The number of tablets is counted in each bag and tray. The percentage of mistakes is very low and those that are found to be incorrectly counted are rectified here, which means that when the order leaves Apoteket, it is accurate.

The Gryphon™ instinctive bar code reader serves an important function in this whole process, which ensures that each patient gets the right dose of his or her necessary medication.