Archive for the ‘Hospital Barcode Scanner Photo’ Category
Hospital Barcode Scanner Photo
Hospital Barcode Scanner Photo
One of the major industries looking after the health and ensuring better living conditions to the whole of mankind is the healthcare industry. In spite of having hospitals, nursing homes, medical institutions etc. for the betterment of people, yet one hears of wrong treatment or medication being administered due to identification errors or an error in spellings or typing. But ever since the inimitable barcode system of products and services has been invented, the possibility of errors in the industrial and the retail sectors have almost been eliminated. The healthcare industry has adopted the barcodes system to identify patients admitted for treatment to nullify the possibility of wrong identification which can lead to serious complications.
Manual errors like mistakes while prescribing drugs, wrong packaging and labeling of medications or distribution and administration of medicines is possible. But, barcode identification system has solved all these problems successfully. This has led to an enhanced safety of all the patients. A standard practice in most healthcare organizations today, is to tie barcode identification bands to the wrist of a patient which is then scanned to collect the required information about the patient. Generally the linear or the 2D barcodes are used for this process. Since the same barcode is attached to the patient and to the medicine administered, the medication process is a lot simpler. Since the scanning takes place before the drug is administered, the right patient gets the right drug.
Specialized hardware and software equipments are used while using barcodes for healthcare purposes. Barcode prints that generate barcodes which are attached to the medicines as well as the patients wrists, barcode scanners attached to computers, communication networks that link scanners to the central processing computers, software applications that analyzes barcode information which is related to various departments in the hospitals, like the pharmaceutical departments, admission department, discharge department etc. this is known as the bar-coded medication administration or the BCMA. Another feature is a small computer which is located near the patient that requires an interface for the bar-coded scanners to be linked to it and the computer is hooked to the main control system of the hospital.
One of the first steps in adopting barcode technology for healthcare is the BCMA and further steps further steps for providing medical aid need to be incorporated and provided. The radio frequency identification tags are another identification solution for the future that has advantages which is not provided by the barcodes also.
Barcodes bring accuracy and efficiency in the medical field. Laboratory specimens, diet requirements of patients, billing and other such information can be added for every barcode. All said and done, the barcodes have helped in reducing errors of identification of patients and as these technologies improve, the few shortcomings that exist will also be eliminated.
By Robert T Jones
Article Source: ezinearticles.com
