A Review of Automatic Patient Identification Options for Public Health Care Centers with Restricted Budgets

Abstract

A comparative review is presented of available technologies suitable for automatic reading of patient identification bracelet tags. Existing technologies’ backgrounds, characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, are described in relation to their possible use by public health care centers with budgetary limitations. A comparative assessment is presented of suitable automatic identification systems based on graphic codes, both one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D), printed on labels, as well as those based on radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The analysis looks at the tradeoffs of these technologies to provide guidance to hospital administrator looking to deploy patient identification technology. The results suggest that affordable automatic patient identification systems can be easily and inexpensively implemented using 2D code printed on low cost bracelet labels, which can then be read and automatically decoded by ordinary mobile smart phones. Because of mobile smart phones’ present versatility and ubiquity, the implantation and operation of 2D code, and especially Quick Response® (QR) Code, technology emerges as a very attractive alternative to automate the patients’ identification processes in low-budget situations.

A QR Code Based Zero-Watermarking Scheme for Authentication of Medical Images in Teleradiology Cloud

“…The use of 1D, 2D, and Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) based codes in patient identification is elaborately reviewed by García-Betances and Huerta [25]. The authors conclude that QR codes are ideal for patient identification and quick remote access of electronic patient records.…”

Use of Quick Response Coding to Create Interactive Patient and Provider Resources

“…Two researchers in Venezuela reviewed available technologies for patient identification and concluded that QR coding was the best option to store a large quantity of information, especially when dealing with a low-budget situation (Garcia-Betances & Huerta, 2012).…”

Evaluation of the risk of misidentification of women in a public maternity hospital

“…The Health Department of the United Kingdom recommends that this record is unique and used by all health services, but privacy and safety issues, such as theft of personal information, and flaws in the combination of patients in these electronic systems indicate the need to resort to other identifiers. Clinical data, name, surname, date of birth, social security number, address, phone number, postal code and gender can be combined to allow the correct patient identification and prevent duplication of medical records or multiple recording of the same user, as has been demonstrated by several authors (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23) . Similar or identical names can originate mistakes when computed systems require identifiers -first and last names and numerical registries -to find patient information in health services (2,24) .…”