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Rows and rows of paper files have disappeared from the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, and have been replaced by a single website and a fully electronic temperature monitoring and recording system.
The recording, monitoring, alarming and data storage for the blood transfusion and haematology departments has now switched to a highly sophisticated computer system.
At the Worthing and Southlands Hospitals and the private BMI Hospital, the tasks of monitoring and recording selected temperatures for critical blood products are now carried out by Tutela, a fully MHRA compliant monitoring, recording and alarming solution from Next Control Systems.
Tutela uses either an NHS Ethernet network or GPRS communications to allow the user real time access and viewing of the Tutela Website.
Installation time and costs are slashed thanks to wireless technology that can be placed in any number of locations to provide an interconnecting temperature monitoring system throughout a hospital network.
The 5,000 staff at the hospitals treat more than 100,000 in-patients and day cases a year and with an annual schedule of around 75,000 operations, the management of blood and related supplies is critical.
For the Hospital Trust’s blood bank manager, Malcolm Robinson, Tutela represents a huge step forward: “It’s a fantastic system that has given me complete peace of mind that we are totally compliant with the regulations and can keep all the records we will ever need,” he said.
Originally, the Tutela system was installed for use in the Blood Transfusion Department but after seeing it in action over a number of months, the hospitals have extended its use to also include the Haematology Department.
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