ACT Health wins award for barcodes for blood

ACT Health's innovative effort to reduce the instances of wrongly labelled blood samples and medications was rewarded as the top IT project in the healthcare category of the iTnews Benchmark Awards.

ACT Health CIO Peter O'Halloran.

The health department has equipped patients and clinicians with barcodes and rolled out computers-on-wheels in order to reduce the risk of labels being incorrect or misapplied.

Patients are now cross-referenced with pathology orders and medication at their bedside to eliminate errors; a patient's wristband and the clinician's ID card must be scanned before a label can be printed on the computer-on-wheels and attached to the blood sample or medication at the point of care.

Eight separate IT systems provided by different vendors needs to be modified to deliver the project.

The health directorate has recorded a whopping 40 percent reduction in wrongly labelled blood tubes, whilst also wiping out eight hours of nursing time per day per ward.

It is planning to roll out the approach across all wards of Canberra hospital by June this year.

"It's quite an honour to have been nominated for an award given the projects that have been discussed here this evening, they're amazing, so thank you very much," ACT Health CIO Peter O'Halloran said.

"I’d like to say this award really belongs to the team that was involved in it: our clinical staff, our IT staff and the patients who have been working with us. So to all of them and to the ACT government who providing funding: thank you very much."

You can read more about ACT Health's work alongside the other winning projects in the iTnews Benchmark Awards 2018 special edition report.

Winners were announced at the iTnews Benchmark Awards held as part of Adapt Venture's CIO Edge Experience at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne.