Neoteric Technology Ltd. announced today that a new study released in this month's American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) Journal of Transfusion proves that dramatic time and cost savings can be achieved by hospitals that implement BloodTrack OnDemand.
At the John Radcliffe Hospital, located in Oxford, United Kingdom, the time to access blood in the OR was reduced from 24 minutes to 59 seconds while the time required for blood bank and clinical staff to manage the blood preparation and delivery process was reduced from 117 to 34 minutes a day. At the same time, the number of blood units issued from the blood bank was reduced by 52%. The report says that BloodTrack “demonstrates the benefits in reducing the time to make blood available for surgical patients and improves efficiency of the hospital transfusion process.”
The study describes remote allocation, a new way of providing blood to patients. This process allows unallocated (non-crossmatched) blood to be stored in automated “smart” refrigerators in patient care areas such as the OR. When a blood unit is required, it can be electronically assigned by the refrigerator and labelled for a specific patient without involving the blood bank.
Blood bank staff benefit from decreased workload through fewer blood requests, fewer returned units, increased inventory visibility, and increased job satisfaction by distributing the workload throughout the day. Clinical staff benefit from quicker access to blood at the point of care, reduced manual paperwork, increased confidence in giving the correct blood, and reduced time spent managing the overall blood delivery process.
“Neoteric’s BloodTrack OnDemand revolutionizes the way that hospitals provide blood to their patients,” said Dr. Michael Murphy, Professor of Blood Transfusion Medicine at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust. “It is safer, less time consuming and we know that staff prefer it.”