Oh this is very so not right.......
An NHS hospital has become the first in the country to issue all new born babies with bar codes instead of traditional handwritten tags.
Kettering General Hospital’s maternity unit has introduced the system to end mistakes caused by the illegible handwriting of medicalstaff.
Now all newborns are getting a personal bar code strapped on their ankles which midwives zap with a scanner to read the baby’s details.
Medical staff can find the child’s name, date of birth, national insurance number and name of the mother in a matter of seconds. They canalso trace blood samples at the press of a button via a regionallaboratory that tests for conditions such as sickle cell disease andcystic fibrosis.
Bar coding also eliminates the risk of scribbling wrong facts or figures in health notes, so reducing the risk of childhood conditionsand diseases going unnoticed.
The move by the foundation hospital, in Northamptonshire,comes after a national safety review. Bar codes are estimated to cut drasticallythe time spent on paperwork by midwives, nurses and doctors.
Paula Lilburn, the hospital’s information and technology project manager, said: ”The new system is quicker and safer because thebar-coded information can be quickly read by the computers without thepossibility of human transcription errors.” The hospital spent threemonths developing the electronic baby system.
The first babies to be bar-coded were born this week. Previously midwives or doctors wrote the newborn’s name, mother and date of birthand NI number on an ankle band. Midwives would also fill in ahandwritten form and send it with blood tests to a regional laboratory.But scientists often faced problems deciphering handwriting, which couldlead to some medical conditions failing to be diagnosed.
The ankle bar code also includes a heel prick blood sample label taken after five weeks, which proud new parents can take home with themin a little red baby book.
Gail Johnson, education and professional development adviser at Royal College of Midwifery, said: ” This is about making sure the rightinformation is shared. It makes it safer so there can be no mistakes andstreamlines the service. If you have got to write out numbers four orfive times there is the potential for mistakes. But if you have got itin a bar code you get rid of mistakes and eradicate human error.”
Replies
You can read the name of the patient, and a barcode... Printed by a computer on etikets as well, those etikets are used for identification of blood samples, all kind of papers, labo-requests,...
This system is used for identification for every patient, not only the new borns, also the mothers, the ill and the sick, and the demented
It is a fast way to identify someone(thinking of newborns, kids, demented persons, unconscious or sleeping persons), the bar code is scanable, so all needed personal information is easy accesible in the hospital computers (and not visible for random people that are reading that )
PLEASE,... don't start be paranoid for the nice things technologie and computers can offer humanity, instead of panicing because you see a barcode
(thinking: you will appreciate it when they identify you correctly in the operation room while you are under narcose, before they amputate your leg because they are mistaking you for another person...) and you will appreciate it when the anesthesiologist can use stickers with those barcodes, instead of having to write your names more than ten times over and over again... I prefer him monitoring my biometrics
as far as I know this system, the bar code (and correlated personal information) is specific for the system that the hospital is using
I am grateful for this barcodes, they are meant to be beneficial for patients and hospital personel
don't throw away the child with the bathwater