File Type:	Name:	Publish Date:	Size:
	Protecting Patient Safety with Laboratory Bar Code Labeling	11/04/2008	151 Kb

Description:	Errors occur on approximately 1 percent of hospital lab samples, and sample identification errors cause nearly 161,000 adverse health events in the U.S. each year according to various studies. This white paper explains how bar code sample tracking can improve patient safety and lab efficiency.
Full Abstract:	The laboratory is an important line of defense against patient safety errors because of the role it can play in preventing adverse events related to sample misidentification. By establishing processes to accurately label and identify samples, laboratory staff can significantly reduce the incidence of misidentified, lost or unusable samples, and the related negative consequences, including redraws, misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment. Bar code labeling and sample tracking is proven to reduce sample identification and data entry errors. Specimen labeling systems can be implemented in the lab regardless of whether or not bedside specimen labeling is used, and most LIS/LIMS systems support bar code data entry, so bar coding is a convenient complement to legacy processes and technologies. This paper explains the fundamentals of laboratory labels systems and cites literature that documents sample identification errors and the effectiveness of bar coding for preventing them.