Barcoded Patient Labels

EasyCare HMS v2.8 introduces barcoded labels that can cut down errors and bring efficiencies to your processes. Here is information that can help you evaluate its benefit for your hospital.

The Case for a Barcoded Label

Barcodes have been in use in manufacturing for a long time. In high-volume situations, the time savings that scanning a barcode brings (compared to typing a long, serial number) can be substantial.

We have been considering the use of barcodes in EasyCare HMS for a while. The natural candidate was inventory. But, on analysis, we realised that the overheads of generating and sticking barcodes to items was much higher than the benefit it would deliver. The initiative was therefore shelved.

Recently, in one of our customer conversations, we discovered a need that required batch processing of patient medical records (check-in/out of medical records). This requirement lent itself to the application of barcoded labels as it can significantly improve the speed of processing individual files. Besides this usecase, a scannable patient number will cut down instances of typographical errors.

This led us to build support for barcoded patient labels in EasyCare HMS.

The Barcoded Patient Label

Here is an example of the printed label generated from the system:

note: certain lines have been masked in the picture

The barcoded label can be pasted both on the patient's medical record / file as well as on the patient's card. Providing scanners at the point of use can make the process of opening a patient's billing screen / medical record simple and seamless.

Costs

For production use, we recommend the TSC TE200 Barcode Printer. This uses wax transfer technology. The current costs are as follows:

One time investments:

• Printer: TSC TE200 (INR 12,000 - 15,000)

• Barcode scanners: USB interfaced (INR 2500-4000) each.

Consumables:

• Wax Ribbon: TSC Thermal Transfer Barcode Wax Ribbon 60mm (INR 350-450)

• Sticker Labels: 100x50mm, 1500 Label Roll (INR 300-500)

Note: Please be aware that the wax ribbons need to be disposed off responsibly as they contain patient information.

Benefits

1. Eliminate typographical errors in both clinical and non-clinical screens.

2. Improved readability due to letter quality printing, higher contrast and variable font sizes used in the label's design.

3. Improved perception of hospital processes in the mind of the patient and other stakeholders.

And finally...

Barcoded labels may not yield substantial benefits in small hospitals with low patient load. EasyCare HMS will continue to support the dot-matrix label printing.

The system cannot support dot matrix and barcoded labels at the same time. If you decide to go with the barcoded labels, you will need replace all the current dot-matrix label printers.

This feature is provided at no additional cost to all our customers. If you would like to implement this in your hospital, please get in touch with us on EasyCare Support and we will be happy to guide you through the procurement and implementation tasks.