Student designs intelligent patient wristband to reduce medication errors

09 August 2005
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Claire Dunne’s ‘Brilliant’ uses electronic tagging to match the correct medicines with the correct patients

Brunel Industrial Design and Technology student, Claire Dunne, has designed a reusable intelligent identity wristband that should eliminate patients being given the incorrect medicine. 

Called Brilliant, the wristband works by using a sensor to match medicines against the patient.  Brilliant scans electronic tags built in to the medicines packaging – making sure it is of the correct type. 

Medication errors, caused by the incorrect medication or dose being given to the patient, cause over 1200 deaths a year[1]. 

This can be due to drugs having similar packaging, illegible handwriting on the drug chart or incorrect identification of the patient.  Claire believes by electronically matching the drugs to the patient, her system would prevent these situations and ensure that human error is dramatically reduced.

How it works

The innovative wristband contains a sensor to scan medicines and a chip.  The chip is programmed on the patient’s arrival at the hospital, with the patients’ details and drug requirements.  The patients’ details are displayed on two small screens built into the wristband, which update when the drug is touched against the sensor.

The bracelet works in conjunction with electronic chips attached to the medicines packaging (called an iButton).  When the drugs packaging is touched against the sensor on the wristband, Brilliant can recognise whether it is the correct drug or not. 

The wristband then informs the nurse if the correct drug has been selected or not by displaying this information on the wristband’s screens.  Each time a dose is given the date and time are logged in the chip contained inside the wristband. 

This information can be downloaded on to a computer at the end of the patient's stay in hospital for billing and auditing purposes.  The wristbands electronics module is also re-usable by simply wiping the information on the chip. 

Claire developed her project at Brunel University and was able to carry out tests with staff at St. Anthony's Private Hospital in Surrey.  Ward Sister Helen Groome comments:

“Claire’s design is a really practical use of electronic-tagging in medical equipment design.  Brilliant will give an extra level of security to both staff and patients – ensuring that the correct drug is being administered at the correct time.”

Brilliant was recently awarded a Prize in the Reliance Awards for Innovation and Enterprise, presented at the Brunel Design Show 2005.

Brian Kingham, Chairman of Reliance Security Group comments:

“Judging the Brunel Reliance Prize is always a very difficult process due to the extremely high level of talent at Brunel University.  This year was no exception, but we felt that Claire’s design stood out as one which showed great innovation, coupled with a healthy dose of commercial reality”

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

For further information about Brilliant, please contact Victoria Lefroy / Kate Lawson at Fuse PR on Tel: 020 8752 3209/3210 or email: victoria@fusepr.com  / kate@fusepr.com

About Reliance:

Reliance is an established market leader in the provision of manpower and electronic security solutions, facilities management and business process outsourcing.  For further information about Reliance, please contact Oona Rosser on 01895 205037