Barcode scanning improves safety and efficiency

16 July 2020 Seamus Ward

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The report, A scan of the benefits: the Scan4Safety evidence report, looks at the six pilots, which were funded by the Department of Health to run in 2016/17 and 2017/18. The trusts were charged with investigating the impact of consistent point-of-care barcode scanning on patient safety and the efficiency of healthcare delivery.Lord.Prior l Parliament UK Licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Under the programme, trust staff scan patient wristbands, location barcodes, barcodes on stock used, including prostheses, and OPCS codes to identify the procedure taking place. In some hospitals, staff have a barcode on their ID, allowing them to collect information on who was involved in the procedure. The Scan4Safety report said this gave the trusts a rich source of data to, for example, allow speedier identification of patients in the event of a product recall, more detailed costing information and the creation of patient safety alerts.

At North Tees and Hartlepool Hospital NHS Trust, for example, scanning a nasogastric tube before use displays a patient safety alert detailing the potential risks. Once the tube has been placed, the clinician is required to confirm a pH test has been conducted – this is a key indicator of whether the tube is in the right place and thus helps eliminate the risk of never events.

The introduction of scanning in pharmacy at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust reduced error rates by 76%, including the elimination of all errors caused by wrong patient, wrong drug, wrong dose and wrong form.

Point-of-care scanning gave trusts the ability to trace and share details of treatments and implants given to patients – deemed vital by the recent Cumberlege review of medicines and medical device safety. Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust told the report that its average product recall time has fallen from just over eight days to less than 35 minutes following implementation of barcode scanning. As a result, the trust estimates it will save more than £84,400 a year on recalls.

The Scan4Safety report said that trusts with the technology saw a reduction in costs and an increase in efficiency. Over the two years, the trusts found that the scanning process led to 140,000 hours of clinical time being released back to care for patients as they had to spend less time ordering stock.

Financial benefits included recurrent inventory savings worth nearly £5m and non-recurrent inventory reductions of £9m. With the scanning linked to a stock management system, orders can be made automatically once levels reach a pre-set threshold, avoiding over-ordering and stock expiring.

Better stock management at University Hospital of Hartlepool led to £154,939 of savings in orthopaedic theatres by July 2017. At the end of the two-year Scan4Safety demonstrator project, the trust had realised overall savings of more than £1.1m.

NHS England chair Lord Prior (pictured above) said scanning offered much to the NHS. ‘Barcodes are commonplace in most industries and been around for a long time. It is time they became commonplace in the NHS. They offer traceability, efficiency savings and greater patient safety. We live in a world in which digital technology has already fundamentally changed the banking industry, the retail industry, and many others. It offers a similar opportunity in healthcare. 

‘Barcodes are a small but essential part of that revolution. We need to embrace it, now.’Glen.Hodgson l

Glen Hodgson (pictured), head of healthcare at GS1 UK – the body that sets barcode standards – added: ‘This report fully details the evidence from the Scan4Safety demonstrator programme. It highlights the improvements made to patient safety and financial efficiency by enabling traceability in a clinical setting through the unambiguous identification of every person, every product, and every place. It provides a compelling case for the implementation of point-of-care scanning across the NHS, particularly as we consider how to learn from the difficult lessons arising from the Cumberlege review.’

GS1 has a five-year licence with the NHS, which is due to end in 2024, allowing all acute trusts in England to generate GS1 barcodes at no additional cost.

 

For further information on Scan4Safety, see Track and trace, Healthcare Finance, April 2019

 

The Scan4Safety sites

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (now University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust)

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

The report also draws from experiences at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which self-funded the implementation of the programme.