As part of its drive towards increased IT systems integration and better data quality, Informing Healthcare has signed a framework agreement for the provision of LabelTrace, a patient demographic labelling system developed by QuickTrace Ltd, to all general practices across Wales.
Initially the system will be used to replace hand writing on request forms and specimen tubes with labels containing clearly printed and barcoded patient demographic information, supplied directly from the clinical system.
Results from two pilot trials carried out last year suggest LabelTrace will offer significant time savings to both practices and labs when handling specimen requests. Moreover, the quality of data was dramatically improved resulting in fewer instances of duplicate patient record creation at the labs.
LabelTrace was chosen as it was the only labelling solution that could print an identical label, irrespective of which of 12 different clinical systems it came from. Additionally, LabelTrace offered a proven solution that was already in use in almost every practice in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and a number of practices in England.
Graham Fenton of Codegate, the suppliers of LabelTrace for England and Wales said:
The adoption of LabelTrace will help facilitate agreement on a standard requesting label design for use throughout the whole of Wales. This will offer long lasting improvements in data quality and in the speed and efficiency of processing sample requests across 500 practices and 12 pathology departments, spread across 22 Local Health Boards.
The Informing Healthcare programme is also working towards the creation of a set of services which will integrate person-based information, enabling it to be joined up to improve patient care across the NHS and Social Care in Wales. This is addressed in the Care Management Information Strategy (CMIS), of which one of the components is the Test Requesting and Results Reporting (TRRR) service. The procurement of LabelTrace is considered to be part of the preparation for the TRRR project and complementary to it, as it integrates with all the major electronic requesting systems.
About LabelTrace:
LabelTrace is a low cost labelling solution that enables primary care staff to print labels for patient test requests and samples directly from the clinical system, saving considerable time and greatly improving the quality of data provided to the labs. LabelTrace was developed by QuickTrace Ltd.
About QuickTrace:
QuickTrace is a leading supplier of barcoding and data collection solutions for healthcare, specialising in niche labelling applications. QuickTrace is a privately owned company based in Edinburgh and has appointed Codegate as exclusive supplier of LabelTrace in England and Wales.
There are currently over 9,000 LabelTrace printers in use across the UK in over 1,600 practices.
About Codegate:
Codegate specialises in the provision of mobile enterprise solutions with particular focus in the transport, warehouse, logistics, healthcare and mobile workforce markets. This includes a full service offering from functional specification through to design, production, implementation and maintenance of robust mobile computing and wireless technology solutions. A Codegate solution combines rugged hand-held computers and label printers sourced from the worlds leading manufacturers, with off the shelf and bespoke software.
Codegate is a privately owned company with a head office in Oxfordshire, and is an ISO9000:2000 certified company, with customers across the UK and Europe.
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