Zebra barcode printing solution improves safety and accuracy at Colombian Critical Care Clinic
Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA), the market leader in rugged mobile computers, barcode scanners and barcode printers enhanced with software and services to enable real-time enterprise visibility, announced today that Fundación Salud de Antioquia, a healthcare clinic in Colombia, specializing in the treatment of diseases requiring advanced medical technology, selected a Zebra barcode printing solution to improve its patient identification and asset tracking system.
“Clinica del Norte selected Zebra’s printers and supplies because of their high quality and global brand reputation. Our staff is excited about the new capabilities of the technology to eliminate manual methods, streamline processes and save time in providing care for our patients,” said Catalina Higuita Bedoya, Quality and Planning Director, Clinica del Norte. “The success of the patient safety project has served to prove the effectiveness of Zebra’s technology, and we expect that we will incorporate Zebra into all future implementations at our institution.”
By replacing their manual patient identification and asset tracking process with Zebra’s HC100 wristband printer, the GK420T-HC desktop printerand the GT800 desktop printer, Clínica del Norte has achieved nearly 100 percent accuracy in patient identification and medication administration.
“Zebra’s printers and identification platform, enabled by mobility, enhance patient safety by providing positive identification of the patient, their medications, specimens, devices and supplies used in their care, and the staff that provides that care,” said Juan Pablo Cerro, Channel Account Manager for Zebra. “We are helping Clinica del Norte maximize visibility so caregivers can deliver the right care, at the right time, to the right patient, ultimately improving the patient experience.”
KEY FACTS
- The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes misidentification as a threat that can result in “medication errors, transfusion errors, testing errors, wrong person procedures, and the discharge of infants to the wrong families.” According to the University of Sabana in Bogota, 180,000 hospitalized people die every year from medical errors.
- Before implementing the Zebra solution, patient identification at Clinica del Norte was done by writing the patient’s name with a marker pen directly on wristbands which often led to confusion, misidentification and serious errors. Fixed assets were not marked, tracked or controlled across the clinic’s nine floors – resulting in wasted staff time and resources. There was also a new, urgent need for modernization with the implementation of the new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) regulations.
- Clinica del Norte saw significant improvements in patient identification and 100 percent accuracy after implementing Zebra’s HC100 wristband printers. These are designed for positive patient identification and engineered for easy cleaning with hospital disinfectants to enable quick, on-demand printing of individual wristbands.
- The clinic also selected Zebra’s GT800 printer for medication and laboratory specimen labeling along with the Zebra GK420T healthcare desktop printer for producing labels for marking assets throughout the facilities to comply with industry standards and financial regulations.
- Zebra’s barcoded printing solutions helped improve control and accounting for clinic assets, significantly reduced medication errors and improved traceability of patient information.