Saving Time and Costs

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Saving Time and Costs in hospital administration

Bar codes and printed labels: reduce administration time while increasing safety

When a bar­coded patient identification system is introduced into the hospital, not only does it reduce errors and the associated costs of correcting them, including potential litigation costs, but it also brings many other advantages. By moving to an automated data entry and verification system, many administration tasks are speeded up and simplified so that staff can spend more time with the patients and less time dealing with paperwork.

An additional benefit is that an automated system forces changes in working habits. Processes are improved as they are redesigned to include steps such as scanning a patient's wristband before delivering medication or blood products, or scanning the care giver's ID badge to give a full audit trail of the patient's treatment.

Auto Identification | Reducing Risk | Saving Time and Costs | Printers for Healthcare | Labelling for Healthcare

Mobility: decentralise computer and printer access

The availability of versatile handheld computers, mobile printers, and reliable wireless and network solutions has enabled many applications to be redesigned. Wireless applications improve productivity wherever staff are mobile over large areas and must respond quickly to time­critical information. The growth in the implementation of wireless networks and use of mobile workstations within hospitals has led to safer working practices and radically boosted the efficiency of staff.

Mobile printers for pharmacy staff or phlebotomists enable them to produce bar code labels at the point of care -- saving them time. Previously they would have had to sort batches of labels printed in the departments before going to see the patient. By printing the label at the patient's bedside, not only is the risk of error greatly reduced, but it takes less time to deliver the medication or identify the sample.

Mobile printers from Zebra can reside on the wireless network with their own IP address, communicate locally with a PC via the short­range wireless communication protocol, Bluetooth, or can connect via a cable.

Printer management: monitor and control printer populations

Although decentralising printing has many benefits for hospital workers, IT staff may worry that it will impact on their workload. With ZebraNet ^TM Bridge Enterprise, Zebra's remote printer management capability, printers distributed throughout a large hospital can be monitored and managed from anywhere on the network.

ZebraNet Bridge Enterprise

Allowing easy, centralised configuration and real­time management of multiple Zebra printers from anywhere on the end user's network, ZebraNet Bridge Enterprise provides the user with many capabilities including:

  • Viewing printer status and changing settings with just the click of a mouse
  • Downloading firmware and files as easily as cutting and pasting
  • Copying printer settings and files from one printer to another or to many printers, speeding large­scale implementations or printer additions
  • Automatically discovering Zebra printers on the network for fast and -- more importantly -- easy setup of the application
  • Dynamic group management, which means managing printers in logical groups from one screen
  • Alert notification as well as printer status monitoring via the application's heartbeat. With at­a­glance convenience, users can see and respond quickly to a malfunctioning printer
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