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 has already gathered experience of using RFID tagging in theatres. Patients undergoing surgery are given tags linked to their electronic patient record which also includes a digital photograph.

Surgeons scan the tags and verify identity using details in the record and the digital photograph. The tag is also used to record pre-operative checking and making sure that a risk assessment has been done before the patient enters theatre.

The system links into an electronic operating list and when patients are ready for surgery and have been properly checked, their respective indicator on the list goes green.

The new routines with handovers build on the work done in theatres. Morgan told the conference the system makes the patient’s information accessible using thin-client PDAs carried by doctors.

Each set of doctors coming on duty use their PDAs to access details held centrally about the list of patients they are caring for. In addition, Morgan explained, the consultant can leave instructions about treating or monitoring problems.

Communication at handover is a vital part of patient safety and a potential source of errors. NHS agreements on doctors’ hours mean that more junior doctors are needed in the system and they change shifts more frequently than in the past.

“Turnover of shifts is such that we have three changes of staff per day,” explained Morgan, who is also CEO of Safe Surgery System, which develops the technology.

The system is confined to medical uses at present. He said nurses, who also do a detailed handover of patients in their care, had time set aside at shift changes to talk through the handover. He pointed out, however, that this approach did not provide an audit trail.  

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Safe Surgery Systems