How Mobile Barcode Technology Can Improve Patient Management

By Graeme Woodcock, Sales Manager – Healthcare, UK & Ireland, Scandit Ltd.

Studies have shown that physicians spend 21% of their time on non-clinical paperwork*.  It’s the equivalent of 168,000 physician FTEs (full-time employees) not engaged in clinical activities.

The implications are clear: administrative overload is a burden on clinicians and health workers everywhere, contributes towards burnout, and takes away valuable time that could be better spent with patients. The healthcare industry is  turning to new digital tools and technology to help evolve the patient experience, unburden staff and overcome a range of in-patient management challenges.

One area many healthcare enterprises worldwide are focusing on is the use of smart mobile devices to streamline and improve the efficiency of patient management, enhance patient safety and reduce administration. It also helps to meet rising patient expectations, as 75% of patients believe mobile technology helps physicians deliver a faster, more convenient experience for them, such as by cutting down on waiting times.  With the right data capture software, inexpensive smartphones can be transformed into robust barcode scanners—creating fast, accurate and cost-effective patient management workflows.

At Scandit, we create mobile computer vision and augmented reality (AR) software solutions that help healthcare providers treat their patients better, while reducing the administrative burden on hard pressed staff.  Some of our customers have improved the cost and time efficiency on in-patient management workflows by up to 95%. Our barcode scanning technology can be integrated into almost any camera-equipped smart device, putting a powerful data capture tool into the hands of every healthcare employee involved in healthcare management. Let’s explore how healthcare can leverage barcode scanning-enabled smartphones to improve patient management.

Patient Identity Management

As the healthcare industry continues to pivot towards digitized processes, patient misidentification has become a more pressing challenge than ever. Without an accurate and efficient way to read patient wristbands, misidentification risks increase which can lead to medication errors, testing errors and worse—impacting a hospital’s financial performance and quality of patient care. Thankfully, today’s healthcare enterprises can rely on smartphone-based mobile scanning to make patient identity management effortless.

With the Scandit mobile data capture software, healthcare staff can scan patient wristbands using their smartphone anywhere in the hospital. From the point of admission until discharge, your team can use smart device or smartphone-based mobile apps to quickly and reliably identify patients.

Medication Administration for Patients

Administering medication is an essential part of patient management and care. Nowmobile scanning enables healthcare staff to use mobile healthcare apps to scan medication information into a record instantly—bringing speed and simplicity to this critical healthcare workflow. By digitizing its medication administration efforts, your team can maximize patient safety and improve the efficiency of care.

AR functionality in mobile apps also helps healthcare staff with medication administration. For example, Scandit-powered healthcare apps featuring MatrixScan enable healthcare professionals to scan multiple barcodes at once, and AR overlays show detailed medication information—including expiration dates—right on the device screen. These displays can even show patient-specific instructions (e.g., allergy information and dosage specifications) in real time, ensuring clarity and accuracy when managing each patient’s medication needs.

Scandit’s Barcode Scanning Solutions for Patient Management

Scandit’s award-winning SDK Barcode Scanner turns inexpensive smartphones into robust data capture solutions for healthcare enterprises. Scandit-powered smart devices offer the same speed and accuracy as dedicated scanning hardware—delivering the enterprise-grade performance that modern healthcare environments demand.

From damaged barcodes and glare to low lighting, the Scandit solution excels in the most adverse scanning conditions imaginable. Our technology enables healthcare apps to scan barcodes at any angle at the widest range of distances, too—making your patient management workflows convenient and consistent using familiar, intuitive devices to create as little disruption as possible to patients.

Best of all, because nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals are already accustomed to using mobile apps in their everyday lives, the Scandit solution is easy to integrate across your healthcare enterprise. Our scanning technology is compatible with a range of platforms, including iOS, Android and Windows, and supports a huge range of barcode symbologies—making it ideal for almost any healthcare team.

Scandit’s Barcode Scanning Solutions for Patient Management

For a demonstration of how the Scandit solution can simplify patient management, take a look at our work with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. We worked with this leading UK hospital trust to develop a software-based barcode scanning solution for scanning patient wristbands, their assigned beds or the clinics or operating theatre patients are taken to – updating an electronic whiteboard in real-time so nurses have an accurate patient picture at all times. Using a Scandit-powered patient management app, Leeds improved the cost and time efficiency of their patient scanning workflows by 95%—while improving product inventory and patient traceability. Check out our full case study for the details.

More Healthcare and In-patient Management Resources

scandit healthcare whitepaperReady to learn more about how mobile barcode scanning can create more intuitive and efficient workflows for your healthcare team? Then check out our whitepaper, Advancing Healthcare One Mobile Scan at a Time. This resource will explain how to inject speed, accuracy and traceability into workflows across the healthcare sector with mobile computer vision. Last but not least, be sure to contact us if you’d like more insights on finding technology for patient identity management—or the best ways to deploy these tools across your healthcare workflows.

*Survey of America’s Physicians by The Physicians Foundation, 2016

Publié dans Santé