Timestrip Plc is pleased to provide an update on the previously announced ‘in-use assessment’ of TimestripIV by the Whittington Hospital in London.

TimestripIV is designed to help hospitals comply with existing policy directives that stipulate the need to change Peripheral Intravenous Cannulae (PVCs) every 72 hours.

The Whittington introduced TimestripIV to a pilot medical ward between 1 May to 13 June 2009 during which time routine inspection of the TimestripIV was incorporated into the existing Trust wide cannula inspection policy.

The following observations and feedback have now been received:

1. The pilot ward maintained a 100% compliance rate with the Trust’s cannula site inspection policy during the period in question.
2. The Timestrip time elapse display is accurate and correlates well with written clinical records. It could form the basis of a reliable mechanism of demonstrating a ‘within 72 hour’ display without the need to refer to or compile serial records with a potential saving on nursing time.
3. TimestripIV received positive feedback from some patients who welcomed the additional information it offered. No adverse patient feedback was received.
4. No adverse comments about TimestripIV were received from the nursing staff involved in making the cannula site observations and nearly 21% actually preferred it to the isolated site inspection proforma. Adoption of the recommendations in point 5 below would be likely to significantly increase this number by introducing efficiency gains during site inspections.
5. The greatest benefit from Timestrip can be realised by co-locating the Timestrip and the iv cannula so that visual site inspection of the cannulated site and the Timestrip display can be looked at in a single observation.

Deborah Wheeler, Director of Nursing & Clinical Development, The Whittington Hospital: “We are very pleased with the preliminary findings from the pilot. A focus group of nurses will be conducted shortly to provide feedback on some basic design changes that have been requested to locate the TimestripIV closer to the cannulation site, at which time we will explore the option of requesting that our suppliers include TimestripIV as a standard component in their Cannulation packs.”