How positive patient identification can provide peace of mind for patients and their relatives
Staff working on the breast ward at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (Leeds) faced numerous, daily calls from patients’ relatives who wanted up-to-date care information about their loved ones.
As a postoperative ward, having access to accurate information about a patient’s status is invaluable for relatives. However, to get this information, staff had to call different wards and departments to check, each time an update was needed.
Using GS1 Global Service Relation Numbers (GSRNs) encoded in barcodes on patient wristbands, as well as GS1 Global Location Numbers (GLNs), staff are now able to link accurate location information for each patient to the electronic patient record (EPR). With GS1 standards, details about a patient’s status can be provided in real time, making the right information easily accessible to staff when needed—and to relatives when they call.