Thailand’s Udon Thani Hospital has recently digitised its patient registration process, raising efficiency and accuracy by an estimated 20% while reducing human errors.
“If a patient is misidentified, they may be given wrong treatment plans or incorrect medications which hinder their recovery. In severe cases, the effects can be irreversible and may even result in the loss of lives. This is something we want to avoid because the safety of our patients is our utmost priority,’ said Surapong Saenpoch, deputy director of technology and information at Udon Thani Hospital.
Five years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced plans to halve the level of severe avoidable harm associated with errors at any point in the medication process – prescribing, dispensing, administration, and monitoring by 2022.
To date, however, human errors still persist in hospitals around the world resulting to wrong patient identification, which often occurs during patient registration. In fact, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) receives more than 100,000 reports every year that are related to medication errors.
“As a responsible healthcare provider, we want to see immaculate healthcare outcomes by eliminating any chance of wrong patient identification as errors like this hamper patient safety and generate detrimental healthcare outcomes,” said Surapong.
For this digitisation project, Udon Thani Hospital tapped Zebra Technologies to deploy its desktop and scanning solution, which involves pairing up the ZD421 4-inch desktop printer and DS2208 handheld imager with the Zebra 123Scan application.
The customised solution enables the data-powered patient journey that begins with printing scannable wristbands which assist patients from their admission to discharge and with every procedure in between.
The scanning process helps to accurately identify medications, match records, and update systems with fewer errors and corrections needed.
Udon Thani Hospital worked closely with Zebra PartnerConnect reseller, Pacific Plus IT Limited Partnership, to implement and deploy the solution.
Pacific Plus IT collaborated with Zebra to fully understand the challenges faced by Udon Thani Hospitl before building a tailored solution that caters to their needs.
“Since the introduction of Zebra’s solution, there has been a marked improvement in Udon Thani Hospital’s patient registration process,” said Christanto Suryadarma, Southeast Asia (SEA) salles vice president at Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific.
He added: “The unprecedented challenges of our time have seen hospitals today enter a new age of collaboration and creativity. Hospitals are increasingly looking to technology to help them achieve better patient care. Many are replacing manual, error-prone procedures with digital solutions that enhance accuracy, speed, and overall visibility. We will continue to work together with our partners to improve the quality of patient care and build smart, connected hospitals that will form the future of healthcare.”
