East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust has recently installed 224 wireless-enabled Roche Accu-Chek Inform II blood glucose meters in 130 point of care (POC) locations across seven hospital sites.
Linked to the cobas IT 1000 POC data management package, this fully-connected glucose testing solution from Roche enhances patient safety by helping to ensure appropriate use of the meters and by providing a full audit trail for every test performed.
“With more than 3,000 users across seven sites, implementation was challenging from a scale point of view but, thanks to the support we had, everything went smoothly,” said POC team co-ordinator, Phil Bates.
Training of staff was carried out by Roche experts and is vital for ensuring safe and appropriate use of equipment. It is an important aspect of demonstrating competence to meet NHS Litigation Authority and accreditation requirements. Once trained, user identifications and barcodes were activated and only then can users access the Accu-Chek Inform II meters to test patient samples.
“cobas IT 1000 allows me to monitor safe and appropriate use of the equipment,” said Bates.
“I can see at a glance who is trained and who is coming up for recertification, and I can target areas within the trust where additional training might be required, with evidence to back this up. I couldn’t do this before.”
“Connectivity to cobas IT 1000 provides a full audit trail in far greater detail than has been possible before. It also helps us to ensure quality control is being performed on every instrument on a daily basis. If QC is not performed, the meter is locked and it cannot be used. This ensures the meters are in good working order and is particularly reassuring from a patient safety perspective.
„The system also generates a warning when there is an abnormal result, which prompts the user to take action. This means that, no matter who performs the test, they are prompted to communicate the result to someone who can make a decision about patient management. This is another important feature for ensuring patient safety.“
Peter Jones, marketing manager for hospital IVD at Roche, added: “The recently-published National Diabetes Inpatient Audit, reported that out-of-target glucose levels (high and low) are not being recognised or addressed, leading to serious complications. Through our fully-connected blood glucose solution, the POC team at East Kent is able to monitor such out-of-target results via cobas IT 1000 and, in the near future they hope to be able to flag this vital information directly to clinicians by linking to the hospital information system, ensuring that patients are treated appropriately to avoid potentially-serious complications.”
