Point of Care Connectivity Drives Productivity and Quality

Warrington Hospital, part of Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is one of the first hospitals in the UK to install eight RAPIDLab® 1200 Blood Gas Analysers and a RAPIDComm® v3.0 Blood Gas and Urinalysis Data Management system from Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics.

The RAPIDComm connectivity solution enables the POC team to remotely manage multiple blood gas analysers at seven clinical locations including the Accident & Emergency Department, Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU), Operating Theatre and Maternity Delivery Unit. From the laboratory, a single user interface interacts with the status and user operation of the analysers. This enables the POC team to pre-empt problems before they impact onto clinical users and facilitate a real-time, high level of Quality Control (QC) to ensure accurate test results.

Celia Critchley, Point of Care Coordinator at Warrington Hospital said: “RAPIDLab and RAPIDComm give us 360-degree visibility and greater control over testing. We can password-protect analysers limiting use to only trained and authorised staff. This allows us to remotely lock out users and keep records on which staff members may need to undertaken training. Having this overall clarity with an audit trail that links into our Hospital Information System saves time and reduces errors of manual documentation.”

She continued: “Compliance is becoming an increasingly important element within the POC field and the Siemens solutions allow more control to assist with this. Firstly we can keep full, auditable records of our interactions with the analysers and patient data for review or reporting at any point in the future. It also gives us the powers to password protect and manage users of the analysers. Collectively this gives peace of mind that tests are standardised and compliance reporting is at a high level.”

Afia Boamah, Blood Gas and Stratus CS Product Manager at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, said: “Connectivity is key within pathology point of care, and the analysers at Warrington Hospital have demonstrated how IT integration can power workflow and improve clinical governance. The benefits are not only felt by the pathology team but also with other hospital departments that interact with the blood gas analysers and use the resulting information for clinical decision making.”