Zebra Technologies, a market leader in marking and printing technologies, has launched a unique healthcare wristband solution at the ongoing Arab Health 2014, a leading healthcare exhibition and medical congress, in Dubai.

The new LaserBand allows healthcare organisations to implement a patient ID solution using existing hardware and will help hospitals in the region meet patient safety goals, a statement said.

It will also satisfy the demands of regulatory and accreditation bodies and improve efficiency and care for adult patients and children through enhanced patient identification and visibility of information, starting at the bedside, it added.

Eliminating hospital errors in patient identification, treatment administering, medication dispensing, and blood and specimen labelling, is a fundamental requirement to ensure the safety of patients.

Patient wristbands can help identify patients but many studies have shown that between 2 per cent and 6 per cent of patients aren’t properly identified by their wristbands.

A study of wristband problems by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) found that 6.8 per cent contained inaccurate data and 7.7 per cent had illegible data. Barcoded wristbands offer the advantages of recording and presenting information, and barcode scanning is extremely accurate—much more accurate than any manual means of information recording.

Zebra’s range of direct-print, bar-coded, durable laser and thermal wristband solutions, combined with its range of printers designed for healthcare, means that whether hospitals are looking to overhaul and modernise their practices or simply update their current system with minimal disruption, then Zebra has an appropriate solution.

These solutions help hospitals ensure that adult, paediatric and infant patients are accurately identified throughout their hospital stay and enable immediate access to critical patient information at the bedside and across all hospital departments by providing the patient with a ‘virtual voice’.

Using barcoding for lab sample management prevents mistakes, improves patient safety, and streamlines laboratory operations. A barcode is simply an alternative to text for expressing information.

Anything that can normally be printed on a wristband can be encoded in a barcode and it frequently serves as a key to a database. With barcoded wristbands, nurses, doctors, medical assistants, lab technicians, and other personnel can be sure that the patient will be identified correctly and the right information will be presented every time the wristband is scanned.

“Patient-centred care and safety is every hospital’s number one priority and accurate patient identification is fundamental to achieving this,” said Pratik Kajaria, territory manager, Middle East, Zebra Technologies Europe.

“Track and trace technology helps increase patient safety from admission to laboratory, operating theatre, pharmacy and beyond by making patients visible and giving them a ‘virtual voice’. Zebra’s LaserBand healthcare wristband and barcode printing solutions can help hospitals, healthcare organizations and laboratories in the Middle East reduce or eliminate human errors and increase overall productivity, whilst meeting the standards for patient safety set by healthcare regulators and international accreditation bodies.”

Zebra’s wide range of self-laminating LaserBand 2 Advanced direct print laser and thermal wristbands feature an advanced shape and design that makes assembly easy and allows the wristband to lie flat on the wrist to enable quick scanning, while providing superior patient comfort.

Features include a self-laminating design that protects printed text and barcodes; Tamper-evident, adhesive closure; Wristband extender to fit a wide range of wrist sizes; Latex-free.

Arab Health 2014, which opened today (January 27), will run until January 30 at Dubai International Conference and Exhibition Centre. – TradeArabia News Service