Henry Ford Hospital Solves Specimen Management with Barcode Solution

Henry Ford Hospital employs more than 21,500 medical, administrative, and support staff. It has 3 million patient visits and performs nearly 50,000 surgeries  . . . and does nearly 6.8 million lab tests. Each year.Its Department of Pathology is made up of only 28 senior staff pathologists and clinical and research scientists, as well as 480 technical staff responsible for processing those nearly 6.8 million lab tests each year on specimens provided by hospitals and medical centers from throughout the Henry Ford Health System.

Until recently, it was doing this with handwritten labels, with repeated data entry, and multiple sequential hand-offs to next-step technicians. Little wonder they decided a change in their system was desperately needed, especially if they were to keep up with the anticipated increase in business and produce reliable results.

In a case study report entitled, “Implementation of innovative barcode specimen identification system gains efficiencies within Pathology laboratory process,”  the Henry Ford Hospital outlines the solution they found. The report includes a detailed explanation of the so-called ‘old process,’ which will make your hair curl, and then explains the new approach and its many benefits. In short, barcodes solved the problem:

With the new approach…one technician accessions the sample, prints all necessary barcoded container and requisition labels, and produces all needed cassettes, all in one data entry session. The cassettes are marked with the patient’s name, case number, and a 2-dimensional barcode… The tissue samples are grossed and placed into the barcoded cassettes. They are then processed and embedded… At the microtome stations, the technicians no longer need to match the cassettes to a log sheet. The technicians simply scan the barcode on the cassette. Once that is found, the LIS (anatomic pathology laboratory information system) , knowing which stains are ordered and how many slides are needed, instructs a label printer in front of the technician to print slide identification information… Those labels contain all the information (accession, block, cut, and level) about the case in text and include a barcode-formatted case number. The labels are affixed to the slides as the specimen is cut and placed on the slide, assuring that the right specimen goes on the correct slide, positively identified… The slides are then stained and cover slipped. As the slides have already been labeled at the microtome stations, there is no need for a technician to match the slides to a sheet of pre-printed labels and then affix those labels to the slides….The slides are then sent to the pathologist. The pathologist can simply scan the barcode on the slide label to look up the case in the LIS to review the case and the working draft information.

Pretty slick, yes? Barcodes rule! But to gain the full measure of this success, check out page 5 of the report in which the hospital details its specific increases in efficiency and capacity.