Part 7 of our interview with Dr Richard Jones looks at time management advantages of barcoding technology.
Another problem that we face with poor quality of wristbands and patient identification is the idea of lost samples or mismatched samples and a lot of staff time is spent on chasing up exceptions and again each time you have an exception you put a delay in the processes and every time you have a delay you may delay a patient discharge by up to twenty four hours or even longer if things have to be repeated perhaps the following day. It’s also inconvenient for patients because patients want to be going home in daylight hours and if things are delayed and they have to go home at ten or twelve at night, transport costs rise and it’s very inconvenient and not good clinical practice.
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