Gloucestershire NHS Trust adopts MSoft's Blood Tracking Solution
September 2007 Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the latest UK NHS trust to commit to MSoft's Blood tracking solution to provide accountability for all transfusions performed by the Trust which serves a population of 500 000 in Gloucestershire and neighboring counties.
The contract was awarded following an open tender leading to responses from several companies, followed by site visits and a critical evaluation of the various platforms available based on the functionality and quality of the solutions available.
Mr. Stephan Bates, Hematology and Blood Transfusion Department Manager, who led the procurement team comments, ”For a Trust of our size this is a huge undertaking so we had to be absolutely rigorous in our selection process and MSoft was not only best placed to meet our current needs but gave us the potential to meet future needs, such as bedside monitoring of transfusions on the ward.”
The first phase, which has already gone live in the Hematology and Oncology units serving both Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, interfaces with an existing Pathology system. This allows the Trust to track units of blood, platelets and plasma from the blood bank to dedicated kiosk controlled fridges. PIN numbers and user names are then needed to release stock for clinical use and provide accountability and an audit trail.
Ultimately Gloucestershire NHS Trust will be looking to track blood usage not only in the two major hospitals but also across a network of six Primary Care Trust hospitals in the region.
“We have been really impressed to date with the speed of implementation and attention to detail,” adds Stephan Bates. “MSoft has given us every support in delivering our objectives and empowering the team behind our 'Bloodhound' project.”
“To date this is a great success for us and an important validation of our blood tracking capabilities,” comments Martin Blake sales director for MSoft. “Given rigorous selection process we have demonstrated the flexibility demanded by forwarded thinking NHS Trusts in tracking blood usage, both to meet current legislative requirements and to provide a centralized resource which extends to multiple sites all the way through to patient's bedsides on the wards.”
