Authors (including presenting author) :
Ho LP (1), Cheng SM (1), Lee YF (1), Wong MK(1), Chan YM Ada (1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Paediatrics, Prince of Wales Hospital
Introduction :
With the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative promoted among hospitals, more women are breastfeeding and providing breastmilk for hospitalized infants. Ensuring safe breastmilk handling and administration in neonatal unit are complex processes with many potential points for error. One of the most serious errors is the administration of wrong milk to the wrong baby. Although our unit has our own guideline specifically for proper handling and preparation, we still had few incidents of giving wrong EBM to the wrong babies. Hence, referencing oversea countries, a new 2D scanning system for milk scanning was employed to promote patient safety and reduce the risk of misadministration. To our knowledge, the system has not yet been adopted in Hong Kong comprehensively. We therefore initiated a pilot study in Feb 2021 to test its applicability and efficacy in eliminating breastfeeding incidents.
Objectives :
1. To examine the feasibility of using 2D barcode scanning system for EBM identification. 2. To ensure the safe administration of EBM for all infants. 3. To enhance staff competence on using the new barcode system.
Methodology :
1. To perform literature search on the feasibility of using the new barcode scanning system in oversea countries. 2. To estimate the actual usage in our unit. 3. To review the past incidents related to wrong administration of EBM. 4. To raise staff awareness by organizing Incident Sharing Talk and briefing for all staff. 5. To implement pilot study for testing of efficacy. 6. To monitor the efficiency of implementation by obtaining feedback from staff. 7. To compare pre and post numbers of incidents. 8. To monitor the staff’s competence in using the system with the specially designed competence checklist.
Result & Outcome :
The project is in progress and sustaining. The result is promising and shows that the new barcode scanning system is effective in reducing and eliminating EBM error in our unit. Since the introduction of the system, there is no wrong EBM incident. Furthermore, almost all nursing staff are competent to use the system as evidenced by 99% compliance in all categories from the competence checklist. One area to be improved is that we noticed some isolated non-compliance in supporting staff, and they would be re-educated to achieve a higher compliance.
