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In a move to improve patient safety throughout hospitals in England and Wales, the UK's National Health Service Supply Chain (NHSSC) has awarded P3 Medical a multi-year contract to provide patient identification wristbands to the NHS hospitals.
Under the new contract, P3 will distribute positive patient identification wristbands supplied by Precision Dynamics Corporation (PDC). PDC offers a range of automated wristband solutions including bar code, thermal, and RFID.
The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), a division of the National Health Service (NHS), published reports in July of 2007 showing a high proportion of adverse patient safety incidences were linked to the absence and/or incorrect information on patient ID wristbands. The NPSA then issued a directive for the NHS hospitals to begin standardizing wristbands and link them to their IT systems by 2009. In response, the NHSSC awarded contracts to eight suppliers to provide patient ID wristbands to the NHS hospitals.
Simon Talbot of P3 Medical, said: "In the UK, PDC's write-on wristbands are already being used by more hospitals than any other. And around the world, their automatic positive patient ID systems have been the cornerstone of the most successful patient safety initiatives at hospitals for over 50 years. We certainly join the NHS in helping to drive this patient safety initiative to improve patient outcomes and help protect lives."
Talbot added that, while the majority of hospitals in the UK currently use handwritten bands, the company is encouraged to see a shift toward automated technologies to prevent medical errors: "PDC's systems meet the NHSSC contract needs for both human readable (handwritten) and more advanced (bar code and RFID) wristbands."
Throughout the multi-year contract, P3 says it expects to deliver many of PDC's wristband ID solutions from write-on to bar code to RFID.
Sources: P3 Medical Ltd; Precision Dynamics Corporation
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