My previous posts on the Zebra Technologies‘ white paper, It’s All in the Wrist: Improving Patient Safety with Barcode Wristbands, have considered various medical and non-medical applications specific to barcoded patient wristbands, but I’ve neglected until now to touch on the aspect of selecting the optimum barcode symbology, and, given the many options, this is a topic that warrants attention.
Considerations include whether numeric-only or alphanumeric data formats best fit the healthcare enterprise’s requirements. As I noted in an earlier post, The Joint Committee’s National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) require two identifiers that are distinct to the patient (other than room number) and both would ideally be encoded on the patient’s wristband.
Zebra notes that encoding the patient’s name plus a unique identification number and printing both in legible text not only satisfy The Joint Committee’s requirements, but those of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as well. Because both linear and 2D barcodes are capable of encoding any text content, either would also be appropriate for recording such other data as patient blood type, primary physician, etc., although 2D symbols obviously provide for greater quantities of data. Other considerations include the space within which the symbol must be printed and the capabilities of the range of scanners deployed to read the resulting symbols.
Because linear barcodes may be displayed in either horizontal orientation (“picket fence” layout) or vertically (“ladder” orientation), they can be effectively printed on the narrowest of wristbands. Of course, the primary benefit of linear barcodes is that they can be read by any modern scanner, thus alleviating concerns about compatibility with scanning equipment that is already in service in the healthcare enterprise.
2D Barcodes offer the major advantages of far-greater data density and inherent error correction.
Among the most popular 2D-barcode options is the PDF417 symbology, which is quickly gaining acceptance for wristband applications due to the following characteristics:
- Alphanumeric capable
- Efficient, high-density
- Flexibility
- Relatively impervious to printing defects
- Widely supported
Other 2D options include MicroPDF417, which offers even greater efficiency of data density, and Aztec, the most efficient of the symbologies typically deployed in healthcare settings. If there is a disadvantage to 2D symbologies, it is simply that they require scanners that include area imaging sensors. The good news is that, no matter what challenges your specific healthcare applications present, there is an easily deployed barcode symbology that will meet those challenges.