Liverpool tracks blood with MSoft

The Royal Liverpool and Broad Green University Hospitals NHS Trust has gone live with a bespoke blood tracking system from MSoft.

The new system, which has gone live across all wards, will provide bar-coded blood samples that are linked to kiosks fitted next to transfusion fridges.

The system will track the blood as it goes in and out of the fridges and update the trust’s pathology system accordingly.

The system also monitors how long blood has been stored outside of a fridge to ensure that it is safe to transfuse and provides full traceability to ensure the correct patient has received it.

The contract was awarded in December 2006, but implementation has been delayed by a number of infrastructure projects that needed to be completed ahead of Msoft’s go-live.

Over the next few months, further phases of the project will include rolling out bedside transfusion management and extending the technology to other Merseyside hospitals, including Liverpool Women’s, Alder Hey, The Walton Centre and Aintree.

In addition to the go-live, Msoft have also won contracts to provide first of its kind blood tracking security systems to the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Trust and Lincoln Hospital to link with its blood tracking technology.

The company will provide a biometric finger print device to control access to blood and reduce the amount of security breaches.

Louise Hodgkinson, transfusion practitioner at the Countess of Chester Hospital, said: “We are currently piloting the MSoft Biometric staff identity access management solution in the hospital.

"The pilot has been a great success and has proven to reduce the number of non-trained staff members being able to remove blood to and from blood fridges.”

Lincoln hospital will implement the country's first chip and pin blood tracking system to ensure that staff can only access blood stores if they have the correct smart card and PIN.

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