Barts and London Trust, which includes three world renowned hospitals; St Bartholomew's (Barts) in the City, The Royal London in Whitechapel and The London Chest in Bethnal Green, has selected the Ultimate labelling system from Episys, the global information technology solutions and services company, to ensure patient safety in the administration of drug dispensing.
Jasdeep Singh, head of the pharmacy manufacturing at the Royal London Hospital, said, "Our trust has a variety of specialities including cardiac, paediatrics, oncology and trauma. We also have a specialist manufacturing unit at the Royal London site. We are looking to improve systems and efficiency to support our future developments. and drive new innovations forward. The new Ultimate solution will play an important role in this drive."
The Unit also holds a specials license which allows it to manufacture and provide specialist products to external hospitals, so it has a requirement for its labelling solution to meet the demands of external customers, which require improved labelling and a better quality product.
Singh continued, "We want the solution to enable improved identification through barcoding. We are also looking to rationalise our systems of worksheets and labelling. We currently operate a document control system which is semi-manual. Worksheets are produced in word, entered into a electronic document control system and then issued hard copies photocopied as required. They are filled in manually, and then the same information is re-entered onto a separate system, which then has to be checked, and the numbers verified before we can actually go ahead and manufacture. With the level of manual input, there is room for error, so we're looking to Episys to provide a combined, seamless system which will produce worksheets and labels together, removing the possibility of calculation errors and mismatched data."
The Ultimate solution will also enable the Pharmacy manufacturing Unit to develop barcoding and colour labelling, meeting ever improving pharmaceutical standards. The department selected Episys after visiting the Global Signage Labelling Convention, hosted by Episys, where the hospital had the opportunity to network with other businesses using the Episys Ultimate solution.
"The flexibility of the solution will allow us to improve the quality of our labelling, in terms of clearness and colour." said Singh. " As time goes on, it could become a wireless system with the aid of the technologies that are out there being integrated to the ultimate goal of a paperless system."
Peter Lewis, Episys Marketing Director said, "Barts and The London NHS Trust will soon realise the benefits that other hospitals using the Ultimate solution are already enjoying. It's great that the trust is already thinking about innovative ways the solution can be deployed to increase efficiency in the future."