Scan4Safety: Giving time back to patient care at Dublin’s Tallaght University Hospital

They found that they had little visibility into what item was used and with what patient.

Also, the tracking of stock levels and expiry dates was difficult. This posed a significant risk to patient safety. In the two theatres where Scan4Safety had been initially implemented, the Clinical Nursing Manager was spending more than a day per week on reordering and managing stock. This was taking valuable clinical time away from patient care.

While this reflects processes in many other hospitals in Ireland, the TUH team looked to address these issues by implementing barcode scanning in theatres, with the aim of improving patient safety and giving time back to patient care. This is made possible by making it easier for nursing staff to re-order products as they have greater visibility on stock levels and expiry dates. With the successful roll out of Scan4Safety across many sites in the UK, and in St. James’s Hospital, Dublin, the team at TUH had many sites to reference for best practices.

Added to this, with the introduction of Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulations across the world, most medical devices now have unique device identifiers— the Global Trade Item Number® (GTIN®), lot number, expiry date and sometimes serial number—enabling a simple scan at the point of care.