NHS Digital selects Scandit’s clinical quality computer vision technology to digitise the Covid-testing process

Scandit’s technology will now also be made available free to any hospital or NHS organisation for Covid-related services, such as test tracking, PPE tracking and patient care.

Zurich, Switzerland, Thursday, April 8th 2021: Scandit, the leading technology platform for mobile computer vision and augmented reality (AR) solutions for enterprises, has signed a national contract with NHS Digital to provide data capture services as part of the UK’s response to Covid-19. As part of this, NHS organisations will have free access to Scandit’s technology to support Covid-related services such as test-tracking, PPE tracking and patient care until 30th November 2021.

Scandit’s technology is being used at all fixed and mobile test sites, in home-testing kits and at schools. The technology will continue to help the NHS quickly deliver tests which are currently at a rate of over 1.2m per day, to cope with the increased demand and provide services at surge testing sites.

By helping the UK’s national healthcare service digitise the management of the testing process, Scandit’s technology forms part of the digital backbone of the UK’s response to Covid-19. To help meet the demand for Covid-19 testing, a solution was needed to ensure a safe and contactless way for healthcare professionals, the military or agency staff and trained volunteers to reliably and safely identify individuals on arrival and track their samples as they move through the testing process.

Regular, rapid testing will continue to play a significant role in the months ahead across 1400 UK sites, so it’s imperative that the process of getting a test is as quick, seamless and safe as possible. As a method of easily linking test vials to individuals, the widely adopted technology has proven vital for such a vast national operation. The aim is to make the process as intuitive and straightforward as possible for the public and NHS staff while ensuring the very best quality of care.

Using a smartphone with Scandit’s integrated barcode scanning and computer vision technology, a staff member at a test site can quickly scan a barcode on a booking form to identify the patient from a safe distance. Likewise, each sample vial has a barcode attached to it, and staff can give this a quick scan to ensure the test sample matches the booking ID.

Samuel Mueller, CEO at Scandit, comments: “We have been helping NHS Digital digitise their nationwide testing process since the start of the pandemic. We’re delighted our technology will continue to support the healthcare service as demand for testing services continues to increase.”

“Our technology ensures that tests can be tracked quickly and easily. It also integrates easily with smartphones, meaning that the NHS has been able to scale the number of testing sites and make it easy to deploy home-testing effectively. There is no acceptable margin of error. Our clinical-quality barcode scanning technology delivers a highly accurate read rate whether the scan is happening through a car window at a drive-in mobile test site or by someone who is self-testing at home.”

“We have taken steps to support the NHS at every step of the way to integrate our technology into the complex NHS IT infrastructure seamlessly. We look forward to continuing this partnership and helping the NHS make it possible to deliver quick Covid-19 tests for every UK resident that needs it.”