March 28, 2017 Industry news
Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust has become one of the first Trusts in the country to identify every room on their estate using GLNs, as part of a national Scan4Safety programme.
They’re already anticipating the benefits this will bring. Theresa Gunn, Quality System Manager at Derriford Hospital, said “Now we have identified every room using GLNs and GS1 barcodes we can accurately and efficiently record every location where activities occur. Staff can quickly and easily scan the GLN barcode to track where products are delivered to or where care is administered. This enables us to manage our inventory far more efficiently, saving time and money, and also have a clearer picture of the patient pathway.”
The ability to identify every location across the Trust gives Plymouth certainty not only over what was delivered and where, but also the ability to identify recalled products and remove them from harms-way before they get to a patient. What’s more, it gives them an important element of achieving certainty of truth of who did what to who – when, where and why.
And now, Plymouth’s use of GLNs sets them up for the next phase of location management in the Scan4Safety sites – LocationManager. This online service enables Trusts and their suppliers to store, share and manage their locations, giving both a single source of truth for their location information. Benefits include:
- Single point of access to location information for all Trusts and suppliers
- Any physical, operational or legal location can be identified in seconds by Trusts or suppliers
- Improved patient care due to certainty of delivery to the right location
- Reduced costs due to fewer invoice queries and correct payment for suppliers
All six Scan4Safety Trusts already subscribe to the service, find out more about LocationManager and how to sign up.
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Launching the single source of truth for location information in healthcare