PATI ENT SAFE T Y
Point-of-care scanning: the safety benefits
A recent report highlighted the patient safety benefits and efficiencies that can be gained through point of care scanning in the NHS. Glen Hodgson offers an overview of the Scan4Safety project and discusses the key findings from Trusts that have implemented the technology.
Within any clinical setting, patient safety is of the utmost importance. The best way to achieve it is through the seamless flow of patient information between systems and organisations. Clinicians should have the capacity to capture details of any patient- clinician encounters at the point of care, and in a standardised format that can be directly updated into the patient record in real time. Embedding these capabilities within healthcare systems across the world, would allow for full visibility of a patient’s care pathway by enabling the seamless traceability of information. In 2016, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) launched the Scan4Safety programme, designed to use tested processes to improve safety and efficiency on the frontline of England’s National Health Service (NHS). As part of the programme, six NHS Trusts were given a share of £12m to implement GS1 and PEPPOL standards. “The general principle of Scan4Safety is that the GS1 and PEPPOL standards should be adopted across the ‘length and breadth’ of the Trust as defined in individual requirements and milestones.”1
GS1 standards were integrated into each of the Trusts and centred around three core enablers – the unique identification of people, products and places across each Trust site using GS1 standards-based ID Keys – Global Service Relation Numbers (GSRNs) for people, Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) for products, and Global Location Numbers (GLNs) for places. After two years, the Scan4Safety programme successfully reached completion in July 2020, and the evidence gathered throughout its duration was published into a finalised report titled A scan of the benefits: the Scan4Safety evidence report.1 The achievements exhibited by the six demonstrator sites involved in the
FEBRUARY 2021
programme, provide a clear business case for the widespread adoption of point-of- care scanning in healthcare. Outside of the programme, several additional NHS Trusts have since embarked on their own adoption journeys. Together their findings are helping to shape the Scan4Safety blueprints for other Trusts to follow. Amid the insights collated in the report, there are five principal takeaways that shine through from the evidence base.
Enabling traceability in clinical settings
The one thing that has come to the light in recent months is the importance of traceability in clinical settings and that is, in large part, down to the publication of the Cumberlege Review.2
In response to one of the recommendations proposed in Baroness Julia Cumberlege’s report – for the establishment of a patient- identifiable database – the DHSC has begun development work on a central medicines and medical devices registry in an amendment to the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill.3 The premise of this database,4
will rely on
the unique identification of medicines and medical devices, so they can be traced for post-market surveillance.
Should any defects be found with a medical device, or increased numbers of adverse events arise relating to a particular medicine, these products can then be identified (using a GTIN or Global Model Number – GMN) and recalled from circulation with almost immediate effect.
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