Supporting Healthcare Management With Mobile Computer Vision

| Healthcare

healthcare

Healthcare providers across the globe are relying on next-generation mobile data capture solutions to streamline hospital workflows. Thanks to innovations in mobile computer vision, healthcare enterprises can now deploy inexpensive smart devices to optimize a range of healthcare management tasks, fostering more efficient business processes and superior patient care. But how exactly does this technology work—and which specific workflows can it support for healthcare organizations?

As a leading developer of mobile computer vision and data capture solutions, Scandit works with healthcare providers worldwide to drive more reliable and safer hospital workflows. Today, we’d like to discuss how healthcare teams can harness mobile computer vision technology to make healthcare management more intuitive and efficient.

How Does Mobile Computer Vision Work?

Put simply, mobile computer vision automates tasks by giving computers the capability to understand digital images. Through this technology, camera-equipped smart devices achieve their own form of vision—which they can use to capture and convey essential information in their environment. For example, medical staff can use mobile computer vision solutions to identify patients by scanning their wristbands—or a specific type of medication via its barcode.

Because camera-equipped smart devices are so versatile and accessible, almost any company can make use of mobile computer vision. With the help of mobile data capture software, smartphones, tablets, wearables and other smart devices can be augmented with computer vision—creating a more flexible and cost-effective scanning solution for medical teams. Not only are these tools more affordable and just as powerful as traditional scanning devices, but they’re also much easier to handle—making it simple to deploy smart device-based scanning across your healthcare enterprise.

Mobile Computer Vision Applications for Healthcare Management

In the context of healthcare management, mobile computer vision makes it significantly easier to access and distribute important healthcare information. Here are just a few of the management workflows this technology can improve:

Patient Identification

Caregivers can leverage mobile computer vision to quickly and accurately identify patients via inexpensive smart devices at any time or place. Computer vision-enabled apps are capable of scanning patient wristbands much faster than dedicated scanners—making it easy for healthcare teams to understand and accommodate their specific medical needs. And because doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals are already so familiar with using mobile applications on their own devices, they can effortlessly use healthcare apps to identify patients, confirm their medical information, and connect them with the proper care solutions.

Patient identification can be further supported using augmented reality (AR). For example, our award-winning Barcode Scanner SDK offers a premium technology called MatrixScan that supports AR. This solution enables any camera-equipped device to locate, track and decode multiple barcodes at once. When scanning patient wristbands, AR-compatible scanning solutions can create in-app overlays that display useful patient information instantly on the device screen—making patient management even more intuitive for healthcare teams.

Medication Administration

Computer vision-enabled mobile apps can also be used to scan information on medication into a record seamlessly via medication administration apps. These technology solutions empower healthcare professionals with insights into expiration dates, patient-specific dosage instructions, allergy information and other critical information through in-app AR displays—fostering more reliable and efficient administration workflows. Your healthcare team can employ mobile computer vision to fully digitalized its medication administration efforts, ensuring more flexible, mobile and dependable healthcare management.

Tracking & Coordinating Healthcare Assets

Computer vision-enabled healthcare apps can reliably scan equipment, supplies, samples and other crucial medical assets in seconds—making it easier to track and coordinate these resources. Robust data capture solutions like the Scandit Barcode Scanner SDK support a wide range of symbologies, enabling smart devices equipped with this technology to scan DataMatrix codes and many other types of 1D and 2D barcodes used to identify healthcare assets.

AR functionality makes these mobile computer vision solutions even more effective. AR-equipped tracking apps can scan multiple barcodes on specimens or blood bags in a single instance—and display relevant information to clinicians via in-app AR displays. Along with driving more economical and mobile tracking of sterile fluid collection bags, mobile computer vision-enabled healthcare apps can be used to scan a wide variety of medical equipment. From tracking medication to surgical instruments, mobile computer vision promotes more organized, efficient and economical hospital management.

Scandit’s Impact on Healthcare Management

If you’re looking to assess the overall impact that mobile computer vision can have on healthcare workflows, look no further than our highly successful pilot with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust—one of the largest (and busiest) acute hospital trusts in the UK. By integrating our software-based barcode scanning solution with an electronic patient record solution (PPM+), we empowered the hospital’s clinicians and nurses to scan patient wristbands using mobile phones and other smart devices.

According to Stuart MacMillan, Program Manager of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, the Scandit solution pilot “worked so well that both clinicians and nurses didn’t want us to take it away.” Trust is now in the process of implementing Scandit technology across all of its inventory management efforts—which will allow efficient data capture for procedural information, medical machinery and equipment.

Embracing the Future of Healthcare Management

For additional insights into the power of mobile computer vision in healthcare environments, we encourage you to attend the GS1 UK Healthcare Conference in London, on April 9-10, 2019. During this event, trusts and suppliers in the UK and worldwide can learn more about how Scandit technology helps create and power mobile apps for crucial healthcare workflows like operating theatre, pharmacy/pathology, bed management, observations, medicine administration, non-clinical task workers (porters), inventory management and proof of delivery.

Be sure to reach out to us for more information on how mobile computer vision can augment and improve your healthcare management initiatives. We also provide free demo apps for our proprietary computer vision solutions—which you can use to decide whether our technology is the right choice for your enterprise.