Island Youth Project

St Mary's Hospital, Isle of Wight

St. Mary’s Hospital has taken delivery of a new, state of the art, Blood Tracking System. The Hospital is one of the first hospitals in the UK to install the new system which will provide an electronic audit trail of all blood units in the hospital.

The Department of Health require Hospital Blood Banks to be able to track each individual blood component. The current system at St. Mary’s Hospital already tracks every blood component and an electronic issue system logs every unit that is issued from the blood bank, but then a paper trail is used to track every unit.

With the new Blood Tracking System, it electronically tracks the date and staff member of any interaction right up to the point of transfusion, resulting in a reduction of paper and further enhanced safety.

Andy Thompson, Transfusion Nurse Practitioner said:

“The new system safeguards patients by ensuring that the right blood is matched to the right patient, at all stages, up to the point of transfusion. Over the course of a year approximately 3500 patients will have around 4500 units of blood between them and an additional 1000 blood bags will be cross matched.

“Blood Track TM Courier tracks units of blood in and out of the Blood Bank using a barcode system. Monitoring the transfusion process electronically means that staff can ensure the safety and care of patients is maintained.”

A demonstration of the new electronic blood tracking system was recently held at St. Mary’s Hospital to give hospital staff the opportunity to learn more about the system before it is introduced throughout the hospital over the next few months.