What other things, including laboratories, pathology, patient transport, or right side surgery, can barcode technology be used for?
EP: I think that there are definitely lots of opportunities to use barcode technology to make sure that lab specimens are correctly identified. Our hospital is also in the middle of implementing barcode scanning at the point of specimen collection to make sure that we can leverage barcode technology to its fullest. Other areas where the technology could definitely be useful may include other testing types. For example, making sure when patients have their EKGs done that the correct patient’s identifier is tagged along with the EKG. Beyond that, there is the emergence of radiofrequency identification (RFID) capable of tracking patients and equipment throughout the hospital. That may ultimately be an important tool to make sure that providers know where patients are, and the organization can actually manage the flow of the patients more effectively. Some of the uses of barcode technology may not have any direct patient safety impact but definitely could increase the efficiency of the hos
