Basildon Hospital makes strides to ensure patient safety in POC diagnostic testing

Innovative connection
In September 2010, Basildon Hospital installed the innovative Roche hospital POC data management system, cobas IT 1000, to connect its POC cobas b221 blood gas analysers. Despite their many locations around the hospital, the cobas b221 analysers are now connected and managed centrally by the POC testing team via the cobas IT 1000 application, which allows hospitals and hospital networks to manage their POC testing programme and POC data smoothly and efficiently. As a result, the hospital has achieved measurable improvements in the quality of POC data, patient safety and departmental cooperation.

The cobas b221 analysers are used to measure up to 17 of the most important critical care parameters, including blood gases, electrolytes, co-oximetry, metabolites and bilirubin. At Basildon Hospital, these POC analysers are located, for example, on the accident and emergency ward, the cardiothoracic centre, respiratory wards and clinic, the intensive care unit, recovery areas in theatre, the labour ward and the neonatal intensive care unit wards, where urgent results for these parameters will make an immediate difference to the way a patient is treated.

Accurate results record
Bronwyn Moore, POC testing manager at Basildon Hospital, explains: “In the past, we required at least three data items to be entered when running a sample on the POC analysers in order to be sure that the patient is correctly identified. Now, with cobas IT 1000, the patient’s unique hospital number is simply scanned via a barcode or entered into the machine manually. Then the full patient demographic details matching that number appear on the screen automatically. It is very fast and easy.