Cambio gets smart on patient wristbands
- 27 June 2007
Scandinavian software provider Cambio Healthcare Systems has announced a new partnership with LaserBand, to deliver its patient wristband and labelling solution to the UK’s NHS.
Spurred on by the release of the Department Of Health (DH)’s ‘Coding for Success’ report and a successful pilot of the solution in Sweden, Cambio will be releasing the solution to UK health providers in an effort to help them ‘boost patient safety using this new intelligent patient identification system.’
Cambio’s UK managing director, Doug Pollock, told E-Health Insider: “We have had great success working with this technology in Sweden over the last couple of years and LaserBand have been working with the DH behind the scenes to promote the use of such technology in the UK.
“According to the DH’s ‘Coding for Success’ report, about 850,000 NHS hospital admissions result in patient safety incidents, costing the NHS about £2 billion in extra hospital days. The report urges the use of bedside verification systems to improve safety for patient activities ranging from drug administration, diagnostic and laboratory testing, to theatre procedures. Cosmic LaserBand is a critical first step toward meeting this need.”
Cosmic LaserBand provides a wide variety of wristband and label formats to meet any healthcare facility’s patient identification needs. It is compatible with Cambio’s Cosmic platform, a patient record system for patient administration and clinical management, and with other PAS/HIS systems.
The solution works by combining LaserBand’s patient ID bracelet and patient labels on a single A4-sized sheet and is self-laminated from any laser printer, reducing overall cost. The lamination also protects printed patient information from wear and tear.
Pollock told EHI: “In Sweden, our customers have seen the benefits for themselves and after a series of successful pilots are using it for everyday purposes. It is very simple for them to use, just by selecting some key data to be extracted to create the label and then printing it on a standard printer, which laminates and uniquely identifies the patients – either through barcodes or coded data.”
He added: “They have seen cost benefits in the efficiency and general processes of their trusts. They have also seen better basic workflow in how they treat patients, and can track patients throughout their hospital stay. By not having to purchase new printers, they are also saving on stationery costs and above all it is helping to make sure that patient safety is paramount.”
Cambio will be offering free pilots to any trusts who want to try out the software, with 250 sheets available for free initially. This will give trusts the chance to try out different data extraction methods and created different templates either in Word or PDF format.
The company is teaming up with Lexmark to provide new laser printers to trusts that need them and is hoping that the release of new DH guidance on barcoding technologies in the next few months will boost interest in the solution.
LaserBand’s CEO, Jorik Ittmann, said: “Medical evidence shows that improvements can be made to patient safety once patient identification systems are properly implemented, proving that it is more critical than ever to invest and install a coding product that can cut costs dramatically and improve efficiency.
“With the added benefit of being able to print to any laser printer, it is now easier for healthcare units to deploy. Our partnership with Cambio will contribute toward increasing the quality of patient care in UK hospitals.”
Links
Department of Health: Coding for Success
