Biometric hand scanners help improve patient identification

Biometric hand scanners can streamline patient identification, reduce admin errors and wasted time, experts have revealed.

In fact, if a patient is misidentified during a medical visit, a medical practitioner might access incomplete or incorrect medical records, or even begin a duplicate one. On average, clinicians waste 28.2 minutes per shift searching for correct medical records for patients, according to an Imprivata-sponsored Ponemon Institute survey of 503 healthcare executives and providers.

Incorrect identification can also affect a health system’s bottom line, not to mention that the majority of providers (86 percent) know of or have witnessed a medical error due to patient misidentification.

The top three factors that lead to patient misidentification are difficulty finding a patient medical record (68 percent), searching for a patient and finding duplicate medical records (67 percent) and pulling up an incorrect record with the same name or date of birth (61 percent), according to the survey.

This is exactly where biometric hand scanners can help, as they significantly streamline the patient identification process. As part of enrollment, each patient undergoes a biometric palm scan, which is permanently linked to their medical record.

At all future appointments at the healthcare provider’s hospitals or clinics, patients simply scan their hand at the registration desk and provide their date of birth to flag the correct patient record. This technology carries additional benefits beyond reducing patient record duplication. For example, a biometric scan can be used to identify a patient who presents at an emergency department unconscious or unable to communicate.

Tensor biometric hand scanners – secure, reliable, ensuring fast and accurate identification

The Tensor HSCAN3000 is one of the fastests biometric hand scanners on the market and works by scanning and recording a 3D image of the hand each time a person punches. The hand’s size and the shape are used to check their identity against the existing database, providing a very good level of accuracy (without actually using any fingerprint scanning in the process).

Tensor’s HSCAN3000 hand scanner terminal employs red and green indicator lights in order to clearly notify the user of a positive or negative match.

Additional important features worth mentioning include door control and the ability to connect multiple units at a single site via an Ethernet network connection.

If you’d like to find out more about the Tensor HSCAN3000 Hand Scanner Terminal, just contact our dedicated product team or book a demo of the product, our representatives will be more than happy to sort everything out for you.