How to Disinfect and Protect Your Zebra Mobile Devices During COVID-19

Disinfecting Zebra Mobile

Disinfecting Zebra Mobile

To minimize the spread of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not just important to wash our hands, avoid touching our face, and maintain social distancing. It’s also critical to disinfect and clean our mobile devices regularly, especially in the healthcare industry and in enterprise businesses that are providing essential services. The same will apply to businesses that re-open in the future under local guidelines and restrictions.

For healthcare providers and businesses that use Zebra enterprise mobile devices, here are some important tips and reminders about disinfecting and cleaning your Zebra hardware at this crucial time.

 

  1. Know the right way to clean your mobile devices.

Disinfecting mobile computers, tablets, printers, scanners, and other devices is critical to infection control in workplaces and public spaces. It’s especially vital for protecting healthcare workers on the front lines against the COVID-19 virus.

A device cleaning policy should be in place and enforced in every organization, to ensure that employees are properly disinfecting their devices on a regular basis.

Guidance must be specific to each device since different devices are manufactured with different components and materials, and their physical designs vary.

If you’re using healthcare-grade Zebra devices, Zebra Technologies has issued disinfection guidelines for Zebra healthcare-grade scanners, printers, and mobile computers. Click the preceding links to access those guidelines.

For non-healthcare models of Zebra products, you can look up the User Guide for your exact model on the support section of Zebra’s website and turn to the Cleaning Instructions section. Once you’ve accessed the user guide, search the document for the word “clean,” and that should take you to the appropriate section.

In Zebra’s user guides, you’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to thoroughly disinfect each device’s casing, buttons, screen (if applicable), and more. You can also confirm which cleaning agents are safe to use, including the purity or formulation levels for each ingredient.

If anything is unclear or you have questions, contact our team at SK&T, and we’ll be happy to help.

For those in the healthcare industry, we also recommend reading Zebra’s white paper, “Best Practices for Infection Prevention,” written by Darrel Hicks, a nationally recognized expert in infection control. The paper provides recommendations for additional precautions the healthcare industry should take to protect the health of providers and patients.

 

  1. Protect your devices from virtual viruses too.

Unfortunately, anytime there’s a crisis, cybercriminals and scammers take advantage of the chaos to victimize people. This is why it’s important to make sure all your enterprise mobile devices are protected against virtual viruses and other IT security threats.

Our partners at Zebra have an excellent white paper on this topic as well, called “Establishing a Robust Mobile Security Policy.” It covers the key risks to mobile devices and how you can avoid them. There’s also a good overview of Zebra’s current security platform here.

Make sure you’re following the recommended security guidelines and that your devices have the latest updates and protections to keep them safe.

 

  1. Reach out for support when you need it.

If you’re having any problem with your mobile devices, or if your current mobile infrastructure isn’t keeping up with your tracking and automation needs during the COVID-19 pandemic or beyond, contact our experts at SK&T for professional assistance.

We can help you optimize and keep your mobile workflows running to ensure responsiveness and efficiency at this time of great strain on our economy, society, and the healthcare system.

Ask us any question about any mobility issue. Contact an SK&T technology specialist now and we’ll respond as quickly as possible.

How Ambulatory Surgery Centers Can Save Costs and Ensure Patient Safety with Positive Patient Identification

Zebra - Patient Identification

This year ambulatory surgery centers are taking a massive hit from COVID-19 shutdowns Zebra - Patient Identificationand cancellations of all elective surgeries.

Under normal circumstances, surgery centers have a tough enough time providing high-quality care and surgical procedures while keeping costs under control. But the financial reality has been turned upside down this year, and ambulatory surgery centers will be battling unprecedented challenges in patient safety and cost control.

Fortunately, one effective strategy to minimize risks and costs for patients and providers is to invest in a positive patient identification and mobile workflow strategy.

Error-proofing patient identification is a critical first step, and it’s absolutely crucial to ensuring patient and provider safety, especially in the era of COVID-19.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the stakes are particularly high, but even under normal circumstances, patient identification issues are at the heart of some startlingly negative statistics:

  • 13% of surgical mistakes are directly related to patient ID errors1

  • 35% of denied medical claims result from inaccurate patient ID or incomplete patient information1

  • 1.3 million people (1 per day) are injured annually due to medication errors2

  • 64% of clinicians say a patient is misidentified very frequently or all the time in a typical facility1

  • 63% of healthcare organizations say incorrect identification at registration is the primary cause for misidentification1

Now that we’re battling a pandemic on top of these other risks, the best way to fight back is with a positive patient identification strategy using barcode wristbands.

Toward that end, our team at SK&T has teamed up with Zebra Technologies to provide leading surgery centers with simple and cost-effective solutions to ensure accurate patient identification, seamless medication matching, and successful surgeries and claims.

By equipping ambulatory surgery centers with Zebra’s ZD510-HC wristband printing solution and Z-Band disinfectant-ready barcode wristbands, we provide a complete system to ensure flawless identification from admission and medication administration to surgical procedure and final discharge.

Our solution helps replace manual and error-prone identification processes and track patients, procedures and medications accurately to reduce risk, deliver safer care, and prevent denied medical claims.

And, Zebra’s Z-Band wristbands are disinfectant-ready and can withstand harsh cleaning solvents, including 70% alcohol solutions and healthcare-grade sanitizers.

Moreover, we’re working with Zebra to help surgery centers streamline their patient care workflows and maximize cost-saving productivity with mobile technologies such as touch mobile computers and tablets.

For example, Zebra’s TC52-HC healthcare mobile computer puts all the tools for mobile and efficient patient care at providers’ fingertips. It combines high-powered mobile computing; real-time voice, text, and alerts; and advanced 1D/2D barcode scanning in a single device that can be disinfected and has a virtually seamless housing to help prevent the spread of bacteria.

In addition to providing Zebra’s positive patient identification solutions and running your EHR, lab software, or other applications, the TC52-HC is also an all-in-one device for bedside and mobile patient care. Many of our clients have been using these and other Zebra devices, such as tablets and barcode scanners, to automate more of their workflows, save time, and coordinate better care at a crucial time for everyone involved.

If saving costs and keeping your patients and providers safe are top priorities for your surgery center, contact SK&T now to learn more about our Zebra solutions. We’ll show you how we can help you error-proof your patient identification and create a more efficient operation through the power of technology.

 

1 The Ponemon Institute, 2016 National Patient Misidentification Report

2 World Health Organization, “WHO launches global effort to halve medication-related errors in 5 years”