Digital phlebotomy means less pain for everyone
The Problem
Blood tests are critical to clinical diagnosis.
Everyone is excited about the impact of AI on diagnosis, and yet current processes for blood tests are often primitive. Most community diagnostic centres (CDCs) require paper forms and label the blood tubes by hand. This is because their reception is not linked to the many EPR systems that serve their community. That means tubes must be re-labelled on arrival in the laboratory. In some places, it is more than 4 out of 5 tubes. In some labs this is more than 10,000 tubes per day.
And usually, patients have to travel unnecessarily rather than attending a phlebotomy centre closer to home.
A survey of 300 patients attending hospital phlebotomy showed the 50% would prefer to have their blood tests at their GP surgery, 35% at a pharmacy, and 15% prefer the hospital. Patients want more choice of where to go for blood tests, and clinicians want a service that is easier to use and wastes less time and materials.
The Solution
At the Royal Free London, we have a paperless solution so that patients have their blood taken at a convenient location, their tubes labelled correctly, and their blood analysed on arrival in the lab. A digital blood form with information on how and where to make an appointment together with a barcode that can be scanned by the phlebotomy team to find requests.
This cloud-based application can transform how CDCs can function, and it will open up more reliable community, domiciliary, and even pharmacy phlebotomy for patients. That will make everyone’s lives easier while reducing the carbon footprint from excess travel, wasted paper, and posting blood forms to patients. It can transform the way we monitor patients with chronic diseases located across the UK, and it can simplify the way clinical trials are carried out. It will open to new ways of tracking public health trends.
Digital phlebotomy has significantly improved patients' experience in GP practices and hospitals. Clearinghouse works with what you have.
It is time to be Healthcareful®