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The healthcare industry has undergone a wide range of regulatory changes, patient safety challenges and third-party pressures to improve identifying patients, medications and procedures. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued regulations providing FDA acceptance criteria for electronic signatures, data tracking, as well as patient and laboratory specimen identification. To streamline, automate, and improve accuracy within the healthcare market, regulatory personnel turned to the automatic identification industry for help. Leveraging the wide range of benefits bar coding has brought to other industries, the healthcare industry quickly sought to implement and benefit from the universal bar code labeling tool. This white paper illustrates how healthcare identification solutions provided by Niceware International enable healthcare providers to solve some of the most difficult identification and tracking problems. Niceware has developed a variety of solutions to improve automatic identification in the following areas: Positive Patient Identification with automated bar code and RFID wristband printing. Offline Patient Wristband Generation with data archiving for later file reconciliation with the parent database. Bedside Blood Collection and Identification with data scanning and verification off the patient's wristband and blood collection sample. Blood Bag Identification to design labels and applications that can comply with ISBT 128 bar code standard. Laboratory Specimen Identification to drive printer cassettes and slide printing systems to uniquely identify specimen in laboratories. HIS application integration through Health Level 7 (HL 7) global messaging compliance for patient identification, laboratory orders and more.
Thousands of patient deaths occur each year due to medication errors. Many organizations, such as professional societies, hospital networks, industry consortiums and patient safety groups, have pushed to use bar codes to improve medication administration safety. Healthcare service providers are required to improve methods of identifying patients, medications and procedures. These requirements offer many opportunities to use NiceLabel software in the healthcare market.
FDA Regulation on the Healthcare Industry In March 1997, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued the final Part 11 regulations providing FDA acceptance criteria when under certain circumstances electronic records, electronic signatures, and handwritten signatures to electronic records are equivalent to paper records and handwritten signatures on paper (see NiceLabel white paper Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Label Printing). The FDA regulations, which aim to protect the public health, permit the widest possible use of electronic technology in the healthcare sector. In March 2004, the FDA released its final rule requiring bar codes on drug and biological products. With improved bar code tracking, the FDA hopes to reduce the number of preventable medication errors and reduce the cost of healthcare. The final rule applies to most drug manufacturers, re-packers, re-labelers, private label distributors and blood establishments. Starting in April 2004, medication covered by the rule have to include bar codes within 60 days of their approval; most previously approved medicines and all blood products will have to comply within two years.
Issue of Bar Code Managed Patient Safety Proper patient care is the top priority. An easy way to improve patient care is by ensuring that staff can easily identify patients before providing treatment. Wristbands with bar codes that symbolize the patient's medical record or patient visit number are a perfect way to ensure easy patient identification. Clearly imaged text, including patient name, DOB, medical record number, and other identifiers – such as printing a picture of the patient on the wristband – give caregivers the information they need in crisp print with a clear laminate to protect the image. In addition, some hospitals have taken one step further and use bar codes to ensure that charges are captured accurately and promptly for all patients. Complete billing and accurate cost records – all captured through bar code scanning – have been a huge boon to hospitals that have taken advantage of the bar code technology. However, finding a way to easily add bar codes to a healthcare provider's documentation can be a chore. In addition, placing the data where you want it on the wristband and chart labels have been the hardest part of implementing a new patient ID wristband. When people ask about patient identification using bar code and RFID label printing technologies, they want to know the following:
How to print bar code and RFID wristbands from the current HIS Software? How to continue patient identification and printing wristbands when the IT system is down and not functioning? How to identify patients and specimen at the bedside, far away from a desktop computer station? How to ...
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