Case Study - Wythenshawe NHS

Datalogic GryphonTM Desk Handheld Reader Keeps NHS Case Study: Wythenshawe NHS Patient Records in Good Order. The Wythenshawe is a public hospital in Manchester, a University Hospital which is also part of the South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. It's a major teaching hospital Trust providing services at Wythenshawe Hospital and Withington Community Hospital. The Trust is also a centre for education and research.

The Challenge: The old manual, paper-based process of entering patient details was very prone to error, which could cause problems further down the line. It was also timeconsuming and could take time for doctors and nurses to recall patient details and to refill prescriptions. NHS Public hospitals in the UK are charged with introducing new processes and supporting technologies to improve the patient care as well as reduce costs to ease the burden on general taxation.

The Solution: Staff at the hospital can now scan bar codes on the paper patient record, which then automatically brings up the entire patient’s electronic record. The equipment was specifically configured and fitted at the hospital by bar code IT specialists Kelgray.

Darren Wildman, sales manager for Kelgray, said “Wythenshawe had already storing all different sorts of notes and we wanted to help centralise these into one main record which can be brought up from any hospital location. We configured the bar code readers so that they would ensure that they pick up all keyboard data and marry it up with the central iPM system as appropriate.”

South Manchester used iSoft’s iPM PAS which tracks patients from admission to discharge. Martin Hobson, IT Infrastructure Project Manager explained: “The Wythenshawe Hospital uses bar code readers from Datalogic Scanning. Nurses, medical secretaries and other clinicians all use the readers connected to their PCs, to scan the bar codes on patient records, and this automatically brings up all of the patient’s electronic record, completely doing away with manual data entry of details.”

Hobson continued, “We chose Datalogic Scanning because of their excellent reputation and the resilience of the Gryphon Desk Readers. The readers have worked without any problems at all. Datalogic and its Quality Partner did an excelent job supporting us with the programming of the readers. We couldn’t have done it without them.” The Results Kelgray say that by improving the accuracy, availability and speed of collection of data hospitals can benefit from instant access to patient records, much faster throughput and traceability of items such as samples and x-rays and other assets.

“We chose Datalogic Scanning because of their very good reputation and the resilience of the Gryphon readers. The readers have worked without any problems at all. Datalogic and Kelgray did a fantastic job supporting us with the programming of the readers".

Cordless Scanning Technology using Handheld Bar Code Readers

Since the mid 1990s it has become more evident that there is a growing demand for cordless barcode readers, mainly for industrial and logistics applications but also increasingly for use in retail, healthcare, bill payment, banking, and other general purpose applications The reasons for this are obvious.

Mobility: For warehousing applications the need for cordless mobility is clear, but mobility is also important for shop floor barcode data capture applications where the user may need to move within a limited area, such as automotive production lines where an employee may need to walk around the car on the line.

In these applications bar code readers with 10 - 15 meter long cables were often used to give the user mobility but this was both restrictive and hazardous. In retail and office automation solutions the operator can benefit by using the same reader for POS or front desk operations, as well as for inventory or filing activities.

User productivity: Often, taking the barcode reader to the object to be scanned can be faster and safer than the other way round. Using a longer cable to achieve this results in the cable being continuously tangled and wastes the time of the operator who is constantly trying to untangle it.

Safety: Long cables do not just cause reductions in productivity but are also major safety risks. For example, many objects can be tangled up and pulled off of shelves, injuring workers. The operator and their colleagues are also at risk of getting tripped up by the cable, which can result in industrial accidents.

Cost: Cordless devices are more expensive to purchase when compared to tethered readers but when all of the above benefits are taken into consideration combined with the added downtime caused by broken cables and the cost for cable replacement (cables may only last about six months in some of the most stressful conditions), the Total Cost of Ownership of a cordless scanner is lower. Cordless Solutions are the answer - many solutions have been proposed by different bar code equipment manufacturers over the years.