Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children chooses Dakota Healthcare to help deliver bespoke Wristband Solution

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children has chosen Dakota Healthcare to roll out their printed wristband solution to comply with the NPSA Printed Wristband directive.

The trust undertook an extensive & rigorous selection process choosing Dakota over rival competitors because of their reference ability, expertise & knowledge in deploying compliant wristband solutions for many other trusts. After exhaustive trials & evaluation Great Ormond Street Hospital decided upon the Zebra HC100 printer recommended by Dakota, with its unique cartridge loading features.

Great Ormond Street Hospital left no stone unturned in selecting the requisite solution having evaluated numerous different technologies over a number of months. The trust attended Dakota Healthcare’s annual Technology Day in 2009, Dakota also held a number of meetings at the clients’ site including presentations to clinicians, loaning of demo equipment & a live pilot on one ward and in theatres.

In detail the project involved the following:

  • Provision of Zebra HC100 printers & associated wristbands
  • Integration with iSOFT iPM PAS system
  • Hardware & software maintenance/support contracts.

Dakota Healthcare proposed a training package for the trust incorporating technical & clinical areas to ensure a trouble free roll out which was carried out on site over three days.

Additionally, having been introduced to GS1 by Dakota Healthcare Great Ormond Street Hospital was totally on board with incorporating a fully compliant 2D barcode on all the wristbands used across the trust, however, they also needed to use a standard linear barcode due to the use of specialist analysers by the trust. The complexity was increased as the trust admits both NHS & private patients.

This provided its’ own challenges as commented on by Dakota Healthcare Account Manager Geoff Monk “We are delighted Great Ormond Street Hospital chose the Dakota Healthcare solution for their printed wristbands. This has been an extremely challenging project from day one given the unique circumstances at the trust, their requirement to incorporate both linear & 2D barcodes on a very small area on the bands & their thorough testing of the new Zebra neo-natal soft bands.”

He went on to say “We quickly developed an excellent relationship with the Project team who undertook a very thorough evaluation process as you would expect from a world renowned organsiation such as Great Ormond Street Hospital. The partnership with GS1 also proved crucial in rolling out a solution that ticked all the boxes from a compliance point of view whilst still providing a simplistic information structure when linked to their iSOFT iPM.”

CRS Project Manager at Great Ormond Street Hospital Meredith Mora also commented “We found Dakota very accommodating of our requirements. They actively sought out solutions to our particular circumstances and did go the extra mile. I have spoken highly of Dakota to other Trusts who have contacted me for advice on implementing printed barcoded wristbands”.

Dakota helps trusts with integration projects across a range of hospital systems; for more information please visit:
http://www.dakotais.co.uk/sectors/healthcare-and-nhs

Added on the 26th of April 2010

Previous Articles