When you enter the hospital, your details will be collected and you will receive an individual bracelet with your full name, date of birth and a barcode.
This barcode will be used in the next steps after your screening, such as in the consultation, exams such as X-rays, laboratory tests and to control each bottle and when administering a medication, so they will be correctly identified in the electronic medical record.
In each step mentioned, if you use the Bar Code (CB) you will reduce your error level substantially. The number of errors varies depending on a manual transcription and/or a label reading through scan.
If you have to transcribe a label by typing, there will usually be an error every 300 characters, for example, on a label with 50 characters there will be an error every 6 labels. On the other hand, using a barcode there will be 1 error every 1000 scans. That is, 166 times more errors with manual transcriptions than with barcode use.
If the label is read, the error ratio decreases, but we still consider a ratio of 10 to one, 10 times more errors.
The invention is not new, almost 70 years old, however, its application in the health area is slow.
A few years ago at a lecture in Brazil, a expert in barcodes he stated that every hospital in North America had barcodes. Yes, definitely in the candy store at the entrance to the hospital.
In North America, one of the most advanced in terms of safety, only 65% of hospitals use CB properly, although 95% have the equipment available in the hospital. There is resistance to its use. Just like in Europe, which is further behind in the use of CB in all hospital operations.
And in Brazil, barcodes in hospitals are more widespread than in other countries, but we still have a lot to expand in this regard.
Other advantages that we can highlight regarding the use of CB in hospitals would be the speed of work that improves substantially added to the cost of correcting errors, so you will notice that the advantage increases. speed and efficiency improve at a relatively low cost.
2D codes are gaining ground, such as Datamatrix, which is preferred by the healthcare sector, and QR Code, which is the code most read by cell phones with Android and IOS systems.
Currently, all countries are applying legislation to control medicines with serial codes, which assign a unique identification number to each commercial format unit.
This legislation came into effect in Brazil and promises to reduce counterfeit medicines and irregular transactions. Anvisa will have full control over operations through RDC 255 (18/12/2018) and its modification through RDC 271 (05/04/2019).
Read more about Drug Traceability: Click here.
