CHI at Temple Street present at HISI 2019

The Annual Health Informatics Society of Ireland (HISI) Conference and Scientific Symposium took place on 26 and 27 November 2019 at the Croke Park Conference Centre. With over 600 attendees this is the largest gathering of healthcare professionals each year. This year’s theme was:

“eHealth: The future is here – are we ready for it?”

This was discussed and debated by the 120 speakers across 14 conference tracks which included “innovation”, “the building bricks of an EHR” and “medication and patient safety”.

A recurring sentiment throughout the conference was the importance of senior management and clinical commitment to drive technology & process change.

Jennifer Doyle, Head of ICT and Sinead Moran, Special Feeds Unit Manager at CHI at Temple Street presented an excellent example of this as part of the innovation stream on Day 2 of the conference. The Special Feeds Unit at CHI at Temple Street have worked with GS1 Ireland to implement a standards-based traceability system that can capture the critical data about each product (expiry date or best before date, batch number, location within the hospital e.g. store or ward, the staff member that delivered or prepared the feed and ultimately the patient that received it).

Siobhain Duggan (GS1), Sinead Moran and Deirdre Kane (CHI at Temple Street)

Jennifer began by explaining how, historically, product-to-patient was a very manual process in the Special Feeds Unit. With the paper system there was no visibility or ability to efficiently carry out a recall, and, staff typically over-ordered to the wards, which led to further stock inefficiencies.  

“Traceability based on standards is key for visibility of the infant feeds”

Jennifer Doyle, Head of ICT, CHI at Temple Street

Jennifer Doyle presenting at HISI (CHI at Temple Street)

Sinead spoke of how previously it took 2-3 days to do a recall, and that now with the new traceability system this is possible in seconds! The many benefits of implementing electronic traceability in the Special Feeds Unit included;

• increased patient safety

• compliance

• less paper

• faster recall

• more efficient use of resources.

Sinead concluded the presentation by reiterating that technology and barcodes are there to support traceability, in any hospital process.

Sinead Moran presenting at HISI (CHI at Temple Street)

Both speakers gave credit to the team that embraced the change in process from manual, paper intensive workflows, to a usable, GS1 standards-based, electronic system of work.

Closing comments from the session chair, stated that this was a:

‘Fantastic example of where technology is being used to improve patient safety while making the job easier for staff’.

Slides available here.

For more information on this solution, please see case study with video, or contact us.