Barcode Design Creative Options from Japan

Many people think barcodes are pretty homely. Packaging design professionals, in particular, often  

Barcode Scanning Mandate in South Australia is Cutting Dispensing Errors in Half

Starting last July, all pharmacies in South Australia were required to start using barcode scanners. Now, about five months later, the early results show a decrease in errors of 50%, according to this article from Pharmacy News. I’m intrigued, however, by the comments of Peter Halstead,  

VHA Asks FDA for Speedy UDI Decision; Inclusion of Only GS1 Standards as Single Mandatory Solution

This news comes from Healthcare Purchasing News:  VHA Inc. and 13 of its largest health system members have sent a letter to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration requesting prompt issuance of Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulations, and that those regulations include  GS1 supply chain standards. At this link, you can see the full release direct [...]

Bedside Barcodes Help, But Nurses Mobilize to End Distractions, Too

According to Joanne Mette, chief nursing officer at Kaiser Permanente in Hayward and Fremont [California] . . . nurses can be interrupted five to 10 times in the course of giving one medication.  Her story, and that of other San Francisco bay area hospitals  attempting to reduce medication errors is featured in this San Francisco [...]

GS1 Releases GPC Codes for Drugs and Medical Devices

At this site, GS1 Healthcare has made the following announcement: To support the immediate  

Another Example of Why We Need GS1 and Patient Bedside Barcoding Now!

Okay, yet another example of how bedside medication and barcodes is clearly needed in every hospital now! This recent article includes a brief mention of how  the Veterans Affairs health system implements bedside barcoding:

Anniversary of 1st Barcode Patent Honored by Google

Today is the 57th anniversary of the first barcode patent. Apparently that interested Google enough to devote one of their famous doodles to mark the occasion. At this Examiner.com article you can see the result and a quick overview of why so many people are fans of the technology.

Pharmacists’ Professional Society Offers Barcode Problem Reporting Center

If you’re not familiar with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) — and especially if you are a pharmacist — you may want to check them out.

GS1 Australia and Victoria University Piloting Mobile App for Diet

One of the questions some people have these days when it comes to GS1 — and the lists of attributes you can pull from the GDSN on anything that is GS1 coded — is, “What in the world are we going to do with all the additional data we’re able to get?” Answers to that [...]

Loftware Featured in Success Story on Comparative Cost of Barcodes vs. RFID

For the record, I would be using this story entitled, “Barcodes outpacing RFID technology in manufacturing adoption,”

Bedside Barcoding Not Immune to Human Error If Mis-Coded

Many of us see a lot of promise in the future of patient bedside barcoding. There’s no question it will prevent a lot of medication errors

Who Will Ultimately Own the Partient Barcode ID?

There have been a number of stories of late about innovative hospitals turning to bedside barcoding systems and on-site electronic medical records. That’s a good thing as far as it goes. But if I’m in, let’s say, Vermont and I travel to Boston for a Red Sox game and have a coronary event in the [...]

Wristband Barcodes Drive Midland Memorial’s E-Medical Records

Lots of people don’t necessarily understand why it should be so hard and so expensive to initiate an electronic medical records system.

Bedside Barcoding Continues to Get More Mainstream Media Attention

The groundswell that will become the tsunami continues. NBC’s WVIR-TV affiliate in Virginia has joined a growing number of mainstream media reports of late noting the benefits of bedside barcoding. In this instance, the spotlight is on Martha Jefferson Hospital. In the report, NBC says: It is one of 25 hospitals in the country to [...]

Challenging Barcode Quiz Offered by SupplyChainDigest

Are you a barcode guru? That’s the question SupplyChainDigest can help you resolve by taking their ten question quiz, located here

Barcode Breakthrough, called Bokode, Discovered by MIT Labs

Trust the folks at MIT labs to not be outdone by the 3D barcode. The MIT News office has issued a report saying that researchers at the Media Lab have come up with a new kind of barcode.

Will Barcodes on Trees Stop Illegal Logging?

Obviously by now you know I’m a big advocate for barcodes.

GS1 DataBar: Inevitable in age when “information is king and space is limited?”

At barcode.com, writer Melina McLean has posted a poll question asking whether or not you think the GS1 DataBar will replace the UPC.

Bedside Barcode Adoption Resistance: What Happens When The Public Finds Out?

This is a follow-up to a post I published the other day about Mark Neuenschwander’s outstanding presentation at the recent GS1 Healthcare Conference in Washington, DC, where he spoke at length about bedside barcode technology benefits. Mark didn’t specifically use the expression ‘market pull,’ but that is what he was talking about at one point when he said [...]

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.