Saint Barnabas Medical Center Boosts Patient Safety with Wristband Bar Coding Solution from Access

SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas - March 12, 2013 - PRLog -- Saint Barnabas Medical Center is devoted to providing the best possible care for its patients in a safe environment. To support positive patient identification on clinical floors, they selected a wristband bar coding solution from Access, the leading provider of e-forms, electronic patient signature and clinical data bridge software (http://accessefm.com/access-products) to the healthcare industry.

“By generating bar-coded wristbands with unique patient identifiers, the Access system will add another level of safety to our specimen collection and medication administration processes,” said Jaimee Ehrenfried, IT director at Saint Barnabas Medical Center.

Once an admissions staff member registers a patient in the Siemens Invision system, the Access solution pulls unique identifiers, including the patient account number and medical record number, and uses this todynamically create a wristband with a 2-D bar code.

When the patient requires medication, a nurse scans the patient’s wristband with a handheld device. While viewing the patient’s medication profile on a portable or bedside workstation, the nurse scans the bar codes on the medication sending charting messages to the electronic medical record.

“Using the Access patient ID solution alongside our Cerner Millennium application, we’re sure we’re giving the right doses of the right medications to the right patients at the right time,” Ehrenfried said.

Saint Barnabas follows a similar process with collecting lab specimens. Once a nurse has scanned the patient’s wristband, the tests to be completed appear on the workstation. The nurse selects the tests and prints the specimen labels on a portable printer.

“Access is helping us improve patient safety (http://accessefm.com/access-products/patient-safety) because we’re verifying identification at the point of care,” Ehrenfried said.

One of the key contributors to the success of Saint Barnabas’s Access project is the professional services relationship between the two organizations.

“Access’s support is terrific,” said Gabrielle Wolfe, IT PM analyst at Saint Barnabas. “When we decided to go with them we were implementing our entire EMR, so having Access follow through on milestones was important. Access nailed project management.”

About Saint Barnabas Medical Center
Located in Livingston, Saint Barnabas Medical Center is New Jersey's oldest and largest nonprofit, non-sectarian hospital. An award-winning Medical Center, Saint Barnabas is one of the busiest in the state with more than 84,000 Emergency Department visits and more than 35,000 inpatients. The Medical Center was ranked by US News and World Report as one of the Top 50 Hospitals for Neurology and Neurosurgery in the nation. Learn more at http://www.barnabashealth.org

About Access
Hundreds of hospitals worldwide use Access solutions to integrate e-forms, electronic patient signatures and clinical data into EHRs without paper or user effort. Access solutions improve patient care and safety, cut costs and enhance electronic health records (EHR), patient safety and downtime planning initiatives. Learn more at http://www.accessefm.com,  see Access solutions in action at Muse International Booth 721 and paste this link into your browser to see why hospital CIOs recommend Access: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTYIp5bjjz0