Case Study: The Royal Children's Hospital achieves increased patient safety and 50% faster blood scanning with Zebra's DS8100 and 123SCAN

The Royal Children’s Hospital Improves Patient Safety With Accurate Scanning Of Blood Products

The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, a major paediatric tertiary centre, needed to improve its blood-transfusion workflow: blood bags carry around 10 different barcodes that must be scanned in a precise sequence and recorded in the EMR. Clinicians were using single-barcode handheld scanners, forcing manual multi-scan steps, slowing transfusions and increasing the risk of documentation errors and patient-safety issues.

Zebra supplied DS8100 handheld imagers programmed with custom 123SCAN software to read multiple barcodes in one parse, select the required codes and enforce the correct sequence into the EMR. Rolled out in priority areas (60 devices initially), the solution cut scanning time by about 50%, improved documentation accuracy and clinician satisfaction, reduced stress, and increased patient safety by lowering preventable scanning errors and transfusion wait times.

The Royal Children's Hospital

Adrian Hutchinson

Chief Nursing Information Officer