SINGAPORE: Hospitals have been maximising advanced technology to help their staff improve productivity, by investing in things like real-time tracking systems for surgical instruments and even mobilised equipment for workers. 

Singapore General Hospital (SGH), for example, is one of the hospitals that has adopted a real-time system to track the processing of surgical instruments. It has saved almost 2,000 manpower hours per month since it implemented this system in 2010.

The barcodes of each set of instruments are scanned at regular intervals - for example, after surgery, or after they have been cleaned. A screen reflects exactly what stage the equipment is at, so staff are aware at all times.

Said Ms Chng Poh Choo, a nurse manager at SGH: “Previously, we used to do a lot of documentation manually, and it is really very labour-intensive. But subsequently, with the change, we manage to have our tracking system by automation so it has become more efficient. It gives us a lot of quality and accuracy in documentation."

After rounds of cleaning, the surgical tools are put in a set and sent for sterilisation. Over 500 of these instrument sets are delivered to operating theatres daily. The system also tracks which set has been used by whom, by scanning the patient's identification right before surgery.

“This is important because now we have this data, the actual data of which sets the patients have used for which surgery. If there are any quality issues or alerts from the authorities, we can actually trace it to the very source - to the patient, to the surgeon, to the people who are handling the sets,” explained SGH's deputy director of nursing, Ms Goh Meh Meh.  

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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/high-tech-measures-help/1546346.html

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Datalogic D130 Heron

Datalogic PM8500 Powerscan