SATO Healthcare, a leader in barcode and RFID solutions for the healthcare industry, has recently launched its automated blood bag tracking and management solution that ensures fast and efficient delivery of blood from donation center to bedside transfusion. Lim Yee, MD, SATO International Asia Pacific updates Raelene Kambli on the importance of a blood bag tracking system and SATO’s new products category in this field
What are the challenges associated with the blood bag tracking process?
There are two key challenges:
- Tedious manual process which is time consuming
- Slow speed in the process from the point of collection to when the right patient receives it
Currently, blood service authorities in many countries have spent a large amount of time and resources to establish safe management systems that use barcode technology. This process still has many manual processes along the chain which are time consuming and expensive practices for assuring the safety of patients.
Why should hospitals and blood banks have a blood bag tracking system?
By having an efficient blood bag tracking system in place,complete traceability from the donation centre to the patient is ensured. Also, this will allow real time monitoring of the blood at each level of the supply chain for inventory control and safety control in terms of temperature.
How can a blood bag tracking system increase efficiency and patient safety?
A blood bag tracking system such as the SATO Blood Safety Solution, tracks the logistic of blood bags from the donation centre to the bedside with rich safety features such as real time location monitoring, route management, time management, access control, and temperature recording with RFID technology. It also enhances the safety of transfusion at bed side with the electronic matching system of patients and blood bags. This cuts down on the time that the entire process takes and enhances patient safety.
How can one ensure fast and efficient delivery of blood from donation center to bedside transfusion with the help of a blood bag tracking system?
By automating many of the current manual processes and thereby improving efficiency, speed and traceability.
Tell us about SATO’s latest solutions in this regard.
The SATO Blood Safety Solution enhances the visibility of blood logistics from donation centres to bedside transfusion with the use of both RFID and 2D code technology. This improves the efficiency and speed of matching the blood type to the right patient, thus saving lives and money.
What are its unique features and benefits of this system?
Our solution is the first of its kind in healthcare to offer real-time location tracking and patient safety features, with RFID tunnel readers, RFID smart fridge and traceability software. Thus the major benefits of the system are efficiency, speed and traceability. The solution improves the efficiency of the operation and reduces wastage. For example, a blood bag that fails to provide enough information will not be useable and will be disposed.
How would you differentiate SATO’s Blood Safety Solutions from the rest of your competitors?
There are no competitors currently. Existing solutions are either partial or with traditional barcode technology and not competitive in term of efficiency and reliability.
Is the system cost-effective? How?
It entirely depends on how many donations centres, how many blood service centres, how many transportation vans, and most importantly how many blood donations are made in the country that is implementing the solution.
How would you like to market this system? What are the strategies you would be adopting to reach out to your customers?
There are some countries in the Asia Pacific region that promote themselves as a medical hub and the potential is huge for this solution to take root.
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