HEALTHCARE Patient safety is always going to be a key driver in the healthcare sector. However healthcare organisations are increasingly recognising that technology can help them save time and reduce errors thus enhancing patient safety and reducing costs.
As medical staff and hospitals are under pressure, either from the insurance companies or local legislation, to provide traceability within patient care they need to ensure that at all points of care, identification is easy and accurate. Patient wristbands with 1 or 2D barcodes are now the defacto standard for simple effective patient ID. Mis-identification can cause delays in treatment if appointments are missed or test results and scans can be ‘lost’ because they were filed incorrectly. In extreme circumstances, patients can receive the wrong treatment because incorrect records are being maintained. It is therefore vital that patients, their records and their test specimens are identified correctly and that this information is quickly and easily established throughout their treatment.
Not only are these technologies being used to help reduce identification mistakes, they are now frequently being used to speed up hospital processes from admission to discharge, from the pharmacy to the wards. Integrated medication administration, specimen management, asset management and inventory control are just a few industry opportunities that are poised for growth. For example with increased instances of counterfeit drugs on the rise, applications for a hospital pharmacies to use barcode labels to provide a full audit trail has obvious benefits. RFID has widespread potential within the healthcare space and many hospitals are using various forms of RFID for patient and asset tracking. Generally, the application of RFID technologies in hospitals has been modest to date, primarily due to cost issues. However like most electronic technologies, RFID unit costs have fallen dramatically within the past few years, and a movement towards greater RFID use is anticipated in the foreseeable future. Ultimately, a mix of both technologies—RFID and bar coding — will provide the optimal return on investment (ROI) for most healthcare providers. For more information on healthcare applications for Zebra printers please visit www.virtualzebra.com
Using Zebra wristband printers for patient ID and mobile or desktop printers to label medical records and lab test samples, provides medical staff a critical first step in many patient-safety-improvement initiatives. Incorporating a bar code on the wristband and medical record alongside any text provides a vital extra safeguard against mistaken identity as information on the patient can be pulled from up-to-date patient information held on any of the linked systems. The market for healthcare bar code solutions however is ripe with opportunity, not only in terms of patient safety, but also in terms of unmet demand for broader applications of the technology within healthcare organisations. При нас се съчетават в едно желания и възможности! www.egepos.eu
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