Citizen provides safer, faster label printing

The latest barcode label printing technology from Citizen Systems Europe is streamlining processes and ensuring patient safety in health environments. Citizens CLP 521 printers are being used to print pathology request labels quickly and simply wherever they are needed in a hospital, saving valuable time for staff and minimising the risk of error.

At one hospital in the West Midlands the installation of the printers has meant that pathology request labels have changed from being filled in manually.

When they were being filled in manually it could lead to a number of problems, as Beverley Thompson, ICT Project Manager at the Trusts Technology Centre, explained. The Citizen printers have reduced clinical risk through improved legibility and accuracy, leading to a reduction in the risk of mistranscription, she elaborated.

This in turn saves time previously spent by the receiving department trying to contact the requestor to clarify information and/or the transfer of incorrect information into the appropriate system.  To solve this problem, we decided to look for a way to print the necessary information from our central systems and attach it to the samples at the patients bedsides. After putting the project out to tender and looking at solutions from a number of different companies, we chose to use Citizens technology as it fitted our requirements exactly.

The Citizen printers are connected to laptops on portable trolleys located around the hospital so that when a pathology label is required, staff can print it out quickly and simply with information extracted from the central database. As the laptops with printers are connected wirelessly to the central system, they can be moved around the hospital on trolleys and used at the point of care, wherever they are required.

The CLP 521 is designed to be simple to use and maintain, making it ideal for use in a busy hospital environment. Media can be loaded in seconds, thanks to a Hi-Lift mechanism, which opens to one side, providing staff with unobstructed access to the printers internal mechanisms. The printers are extremely simply to use, with an intuitive control panel and the option for full configuration print using special settings adjusted from the printer or laptop.

The CLP 521 is specifically intended for use where space is limited, such as on the portable trolleys. The lid of the units can be opened fully with no change to the overall width of the printer, and the printers power supply is contained internally, reducing the amount of space required. With robust, all-metal design, the printers provide long, dependable service life despite being used many times a day throughout the hospital.

Beverley Thompson thinks the Citizen printers have been integral to the success of the new portable labelling solution: We are using about 90 of the printers across the hospital now and they have made things much more efficient. Any problem with printing a pathology label would be serious but everything is working wonderfully. Staff have commented on how much better the new automated labelling system is. Now it is hard to see how we managed before.

Citizen Systems Europe
Citizen Systems Europe operates from locations throughout Europe covering the EMEA region. It offers a wide range of printers for industrial, retail, healthcare and mobile applications specialising in label, barcode, portable and point-of-sale printers.  In each case, the companys products are sold and supported by a network of specialised partners.