[MEDITECH-L] Lab Barcode Printers on the nursing floors

[Jeanette Ahrens]

Hello,

Our lab director wants to install barcode printers on the nursing
floors so that the nurse can label the specimens at the time of the
draw. Has anyone else done this and, if so, would you share your
process? I am concerned that there will be as much or more room for
error with all the labels printing on the floor. The reason the lab
director is requesting this change is because of the issue of "double
labeling."

Thanks for any suggestions,
Jeanette Ahrens, RN
MIS Clinical Support
DeSoto Memorial Hospital
Arcadia, FL

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[Dube, Dawn]

Please post

[Breitenbach, Steve]

We have had Lab label printers at the nursing stations for many
years and mislabeling has been a significant issue. We have been
implementing Iatric's MobiLab product to print labels at the bedside
with positive ID of the patient. The areas where we have deployed this
solution have since had very few mislabels and those have been from a
few people "working around" the proper procedures.

Stephen Breitenbach, MT(ASCP)
Applications Analyst
St. Joseph Medical Center
7601 Osler Drive
Towson, MD 21204
phone (410) 337-1948 FAX (410) 427-5432

Please post

Hello,

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[Lisee, Jan]

WE HAVE RESISTED THIS.. and the Lab is using Care Fusion which prints labels at the bedside as they are required. We want to roll this out to the clinical units for those who draw their own samples or for those patients with central lines where the nurses do the draws. SO, we are "stalling" on putting lab label printers "out there". There of course are real estate issue ... how many, where, cabling, emergency power.. and do you then have to enter every single device on the nursing units in the lab device dictionary (guess they may be there anyway, already)

You will still have label issues... would the lab rather have to reprint labels because the nurse did not put them on exactly perfectly for the machine to read??

The other consideration is volume of nurse collected specimens versus lab to collect.

Janice B Lisee RNC, BSN
Senior Systems Analyst
Frederick Memorial Hospital
240-566-3437
<mailto:jli...@fmh.org>

-----Original Message-----
From: meditech-...@mtusers.com
[mailto:meditech-...@mtusers.com]On Behalf Of Dube, Dawn
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 8:48 AM
To: Jeanette Ahrens; medit...@MTUsers.com

[Jeanette Ahrens]

Hello,

Thanks everyone for your responses on this subject. I received a mix
of responses on this with most success stories seeming to come primarily
from a mix of phlebotomy services, phlebotomy software solutions, and
specialty units. Those who implemented in ED and MS without phlebotomy
services or 3rd party vendor software solutions like Mobilab or Lattice
seemed to have many problems including mislabeled specimens. Both
Mobilab and Lattice were highly recommended.

The beta site tester for the Meditech Phlebotomy Status Board reported
that they still haven't received all the needed equipment and their
testing is on hold.

We are hoping to implement an intermediate plan and would appreciate
any feedback on this as well. It has been proposed that we initiate
barcode scanning in the Lab to identify the labeled specimen from the
nursing floor. This specimen would have the patient ID label applied at
bedside. After scanning this label, lab staff would scan the specimen
label to confirm it matches the label on the tube before applying the
barcoded specimen label. Has anyone tried this? Can you recommend a
barcode scanner and/or process for this?

Thanks,
Jeanette

>>> "Jeanette Ahrens" <JAh...@dmh.org> 11/16/2007 8:09:57 AM >>>