Programming Printers is Profitable for Healthcare Applications

Five years ago Mid-America Business Systems (xpress-systems.com/) partners Jim Scheid and Mark Snow faced a dilemma. They recognized the growing need for using barcodes to track patients throughout their hospital stays.

Unfortunately, Hospitals are notorious for not having recognizable decision makers for any particular new piece of software, equipment or methodology. Working your way through the healthcare bureaucracy is very difficult. To be allowed to introduce new software onto a hospital's network is even more troublesome.

To get around these roadblocks, and allow hospitals to quickly implement barcode labeling solution, MABS created a stand-alone bar-coding solution known as Patient ID XPress. Patient ID XPress is built using TSC manufactured printers and powerful TSC firmware that allows the system to get information from the hospital system and then generate needed wristbands or barcode labels required for a variety of healthcare applications. All without changing one bit of computer code located on the hospital's network.

The solution MABS created is attractive to hospitals for a number of reasons. MABS uses TSC printers to capture and extract data that was otherwise destined for another printer already set up in the hospital. Whether the hospital was currently using plastic embossed cards, or barcode labels from laser printers, MABS has a method to capture the data and manipulate the data into low cost, highly reliable barcode data printed on wristbands or labels.



Other stand-alone printers are placed throughout the hospital allowing doctors and nurses to easily duplicate more labels as needed. As a stand-alone solution, Patient ID XPress is not connected to the hospital’s network.

Because the firmware and software to create the labels is on the device itself, should the hospital information system go down, staff can still generate labels without altering their workflow. Jim Scheid says hospitals are very receptive to the solution due to the stand-alone nature of it. “With the complexity of healthcare systems today, hospitals don’t want to waste time thinking about something as mundane as labels,” he says. “Because our solution requires no hospital IT intervention to implement, it’s easy for them to say yes.” To further improve the odds of making the purchase, MABS mandates customers pilot the solution for a week or more. While it takes the integrator a couple days to set up the free pilot system, having a live trial often sells the hospital staff on the benefits of the new solution.

Once a hospital is generating bar codes for patients, a host of other potential solutions and opportunities is created. Most solutions are built around the concept of positive patient identification. Put simply, hospitals today are compelled to do everything within their power to ensure patients are getting the correct care.

Thanks to powerful partners like Mid-America, TSC printers are in the forefront of keeping our hospitals running safely and efficiently.

For more information about Mid-America and TSC follow this link to a recent Business Solutions article: The Healthcare Barcoding Opportunity