Barcodes in health care

Main article: Barcode

Advantages of use

Decrease in number of errors in health care

In many organizations of health care paper document flow remains that conducts to errors because of illegible handwriting or the faded ink. For them transition to barcodes promises big advantages.

Failure from paper for benefit of barcodes, scanners and solutions on identification of patients allows to look for quicker electronic cards of patients and more precisely to perform appointments of the doctor. It helps to minimize errors and to provide to patients a necessary assistance.

Expanding scope of similar solutions, the organizations can get advantages in all areas. For example, mobile solutions give to medical personnel ample opportunities of interaction at assistance to patients. They differ in bigger reliability and security and allow specialists to transfer quicker each other important medical information. Besides, they give the chance to transfer data of patients in real time, to trace vital signs, to browse diagnoses, medical images and other information. These opportunities allow to organize more effectively processes, to reduce number of notifications, false notifications and, the main thing, lethal outcomes.

At last, barcodes allow to estimate efficiency of organization in general. With their help it is possible to improve transfer and data analysis about an equipment status, for example, of devices MRT, to coordinate work of personnel and to optimize processes.

Fight against counterfeit drugs

According to data of World Health Organization about 700 thousand lethal outcomes annually worldwide are caused by counterfeit drugs. This disaster is widespread in all countries, and most often forge anticarcinogenic medicines, the cost of their annual rate can be more than 50 thousand dollars.

Thanks to the unique identification code on each packaging of medicine it is possible to keep track of its origin and to precisely define its structure. Using the normal two-dimensional barcode distributors can monitor movement of the goods worldwide in real time. For example, in case of bacterial infection the company can quickly bring a low-quality batch out of the retail turnover.

Barcodes also allow the organizations of a different profile to trace goods worldwide. This opportunity is demanded in many industries today.

To bring down a wave of counterfeits and to reduce underground trade in tobacco products, the European Union and also other independent states ratified the directive on tobacco products which enters new obligations for all supply chain. Since May 19, 2019 all producers and distributors of tobacco products are legislatively obliged to introduce new security measures and the systems of tracking of products in all logistic chain.

In the health sector the directive on counterfeited medicines affecting more than 400 thousand drugstores in Europe works. She should deliver a legislative barrier to the counterfeit drugs implemented through supply chains.

According to the experts, 1% of drugs in the European drugstores — counterfeit. According to this directive marking which allows to identify medicines should be applied on packagings of drugs and to confirm their authenticity. It also helps the staff of drugstores to check integrity of external packaging, Steve Mulron, the data collection expert in Zebra Technologies company told in May, 2020.

This measure should prevent hit of counterfeited medicines in legal supply chains. Thus, before the pharmaceutical companies there is a need to improve control systems of medicines for counteraction to distribution of counterfeit products.

Thanks to the unique identification code on each packaging of medicine it is possible to keep track of its origin and to precisely define its structure. Using the normal two-dimensional barcode distributors can monitor movement of the goods worldwide in real time.

The barcode endured rapid take-off and gained distribution not only in retail trade, but also practically in all industries important for the modern person. As products and services become more and more, there are no doubts that barcodes will save and will strengthen the role in tracking of goods. They will remain with us for a long time. The history of the barcode contains only several decades, but we already saw disruptive achievements in the vital areas which repeatedly increased its value. In the future the barcode, undoubtedly, will save the value and will change our world, applying on it lines and square points.