Reduce redraws and retesting with better barcoding in the hospital lab
Lab results influence about 70% of the medical decisions. From collecting specimens to processing them, maintaining the integrity is critical to ensuring patient safety.
Accuracy is also a productivity and cost concern. The expense of redraws, retesting, and the additional treatment required as a result of lab errors is estimated to cost the healthcare industry between $200 million and $400 million each year.
The use of barcode labels on lab samples and specimens enables efficient, accurate tracking. This process provides a simple step that improves patient safety and streamlines lab operations. The traceability also provides a system to achieve regulatory compliance.
A thermal printer is ideally suited to generate the type of barcode labels required for hospital labs:
- Blood bags
- Cryogenic storage
- Microscope slides
- Vials, test tubes, syringes (curved surfaces)
- General lab applications (flat surfaces)
Thermal printers, Zebra GK420 and ZD420-HC desktop thermal printers, have a small footprint so they require minimal space. These barcode label printers can generate tiny labels, are easy to load, and support multiple formats and symbologies. Add a barcode scanner that is designed to read small labels on the wide range of surfaces you’re handling—the Zebra DS4308-HC is purpose-built for healthcare—and your lab is equipped to receive, process, and manage samples and specimens with the higher rate of accuracy and efficiency that your organization requires.
To give the lab staff every advantage for accurate processing, the specimens should be marked at the point of collection. A technician equipped with a mobile barcode printer, like the Zebra QLn220-HC, can eliminate the error-ridden system of manually writing the label. Too often, the labels become smudged, include an error, or are misread by the lab. A clear, crisp barcode on the right label media eliminates these problems. With so much riding on the quality of lab samples, you need a process that maximizes patient safety while also increasing efficiency. Talk to Cal-Sierra about our healthcare data collection systems and download the Cal-Sierra Healthcare Solutions Guide.