First NHS hospital goes live with electronic requesting and reporting

Hospitals have been telling us for some time, they would like to be able to request tests and report results electronically. We're pleased to announce on 21 March 2023 King’s Mill hospital went 'live' with a new 'end to end' system, which removes the need for hospitals to access SPICE for fetal RHD screening: hospitals request the test electronically and the results are sent directly to the hospital LIMS.

So how does this help?

• Reduces error: automation improves the accuracy of information exchanged between laboratories thanks to fewer manual transcription steps and therefore fewer errors
• Helping patients: by incorporating the results of referred investigations directly into hospital LIMS, it improves clinical management and treatment of patients
• Improves efficiency: by removing manual booking at NHSBT and results input in hospital laboratories we can streamline processing of samples
• Eco friendly: by reducing the use of paper reports we can all contribute to our environmental goals
• Quality improvements: the system offers an auditable sample tracking for referring laboratory to testing laboratory so you can easily access data to benchmark your service
  
  

Moving forward

This is just the beginning of our ambition to roll out this service to all our customers who use the fetal RHD screening service. We are also looking to extend this electronic system to RCI reference testing.

The development is part of the NHSBT Pathology Strategy to modernise our operations with substantial investment to digitise, automate and optimise our processes to improve quality, resilience, and efficiency. This project has been resourced and delivered as one of the workstreams of the Transfusion 2024 programme.

If you would like more information or to participate in this exciting new development, please email gary.cavanagh@nhsbt.nhs.uk or telephone 07384915763.

Gary Cavanagh - Business Development Manager, RCI