Leveraging GS1 standards to ensure accuracy and safety of patient care at Canberra Hospital
To take full advantage of technologies available today, healthcare providers need to consider how they “capture” the identification of their patients and clinicians at the points of care.
Supporting positive patient identification is especially important in busy clinical areas and where mis-identification could lead to adverse events.
Using GS1 standards as the needed foundation, ACT Health and Canberra Hospital are identifying their patients and care providers for ensuring accuracy in patient-care processes throughout each patient’s journey within their hospital. As a result, there has been more than a 40 percent reduction in wrong-blood-in-tube incidents based on clinicians scanning GS1 barcodes when collecting pathology samples.