Sussex computerises blood records Rows and rows of paper files have disappeared from the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, and have been replaced by a single website and a fully electronic temperature monitoring and recording system. The recording, monitoring, alarming and data storage for the blood transfusion and haematology departments has now switched to a highly sophisticated computer system. At the Worthing and Southlands Hospitals and the private BMI Hospital, the tasks of monitoring and recording selected temperatures for critical blood products are now carried out by Tutela, a fully MHRA compliant monitoring, recording and alarming solution from Next Control Systems. Tutela uses either an NHS Ethernet network or GPRS communications to allow the user real time access and viewing of the Tutela Website. Installation time and costs are slashed thanks to wireless technology that can be placed in any number of locations to provide an interconnecting temperature monitoring system throughout a hospital network. The 5,000 staff at the hospitals treat more than 100,000 in-patients and day cases a year and with an annual schedule of around 75,000 operations, the management of blood and related supplies is critical. For the Hospital Trust's blood bank manager, Malcolm Robinson, Tutela represents a huge step forward: "It's a fantastic system that has given me complete peace of mind that we are totally compliant with the regulations and can keep all the records we will ever need," he said. Originally, the Tutela system was installed for use in the Blood Transfusion Department but after seeing it in action over a number of months, the hospitals have extended its use to also include the Haematology Department. Tutela achieves N3 connectivity Tutela Systems are proud to announce that there remote wireless monitoring service is now fully compliant with the National Health Service N3 communications access network. They are now able to offer N3 data communications connectivity to NHS customers as standard. Managing director Tim Bartholomew said "this represents a major milestone in the company's development providing further benefits for all NHS customers". N3 connectivity provides a simple means of 3rd party companies establishing remote data connections with NHS site data networks without the need to resort to lengthy negotiations with individual site IT network specialists. "N3 cloud connectivity greatly simplifies the work involved in establishing an NHS customer's data connection with the Tutela service" added Mr Bartholomew. "Thereby speeding up the whole process of implementing a Tutela wireless temperature monitoring system installation". Tutela's African Odyssey Tutela, the innovative web based monitoring system, delivers compliant and validated monitoring solutions for the life sciences. Tutela has been commissioned and is fully operational for the first time on the African continent. The system was installed in the Zambian capital of Lusaka at the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research Zambia. CIDRZ specializes in collection, testing and storage of HIV samples for the African nation. Freezers and refrigerated systems are monitored in real time around the clock and connected via data link to the Next Monitoring Service Center in Hampshire. User access to the temperature records and audit trails is via internet browser at anytime from anywhere. The contract negotiations and long term service agreement was facilitated thru Next Control Systems LLC (Next's fast growing American subsidiary), the University of Alabama at Birmingham AL USA, and CIDRZ. Farnborough (Hants) based Next Systems Tutela solution offers many benefits and cost savings over conventional technologies, both initially and throughout the life of the service. Tutela provides real time automated data collection; e record archives, and 24/7 alarm notification service. Tutela is fully compliant with the United States FDA 21 CFR 11 guidance. Tutela - Total monitoring solutions for: _Hospitals _Pharmacy _Medical Research Laboratories _Clinical Laboratories _Life Sciences _Blood Banks _Tissue Banks _Cryogenic Applications _Building Facilities