Arab Health 2014 : 27-30 January 2014

Dubai World Trade Centre - Zabeel Hall 1, Stand C12

27 January 2014 (Dubai, United Arab Emirates): Zebra Technologies, the market leader in marking and printing technologies, has launched its unique LaserBand healthcare wristband solution for the Middle East healthcare sector at Arab Health 2014. LaserBand allows healthcare organisations to implement a patient ID solution using existing hardware and will help hospitals in the region meet patient safety goals, 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.

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. In 2004/5 alone, the UK's NHS (National Health Service) faced over £400 million worth of clinical negligence claims - one of the key causes being patient misidentification. The National Patient Safety Agency states that this causes 19% of all hospital errors. The UK Government estimates that errors associated with mistaken identity cost the NHS approximately £2 billion in extra bed days.

The LaserBand system is already in use in major hospitals in the UK, including Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust - the globally recognised children's hospital in London that treats NHS (National Health Service) and private patients - which adopted LaserBand to comply with the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) Positive Patient Identification directive in the UK.

Patient wristbands can help identify patients but many studies have shown that between 2 percent and 6 percent 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 percent contained inaccurate data and 7.7 percent 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," says Pratik Kajaria, Territory Manager, Middle East, Zebra Technologies Europe Limited. "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.

For further information about Zebra visit www.zebra.com 

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About Zebra Technologies
A global leader respected for innovation and reliability, Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA) offers technologies that give a virtual voice to an organization's assets, people and transactions, enabling organizations to unlock greater business value. The company's extensive portfolio of marking and printing technologies, including RFID and real-time location solutions, illuminates mission-critical information to help customers take smarter business actions. For more information about Zebra's solutions, visit www.zebra.com.

Issued on behalf of Zebra Technologies by WPR Dubai.

Media contact:
Jonathan Walsh
WPR, Dubai
M: +971 50 4588610
E: jon@wprme.com

© Press Release 2014