Thursday, 15 August 2013

ALTERNATIVE IDENTIFICATION DEVICES

To address the biometric verification component and determine which biometric system is the best for given applications in the complex clinical environment, the fingerprint scan system was added on the LTVS to run parallel with the facial recognition systems. Each solution was evaluated and documented for the advantages and pitfalls in the clinical environment.

The fingerprint scanning system is added onto the FRS (facial recognition system) to become FRSS (facial and fingerprint recognition system). Because of the modular design of the LTVS, such a modification was not difficult to accomplish.
In the minimally invasive spinal surgery (MISS) ePR system we discussed in Chapter 24, there was no patient identification component to verify the person is the actual patient to be operated on. After the MISS ePR had been in clinical evaluation for several months, the surgery in charge suggested that a patient verification system be integrated with the ePR system. Since a surgical patient is mostly immobile, there was no advantage to using the facial verification system, so we decided to use the fingerprint scanning method. We learned a great deal about the fingerprint scanning method, not only its characteristics but also the method of integration with a larger imaging informatics system, during the latter part of the LTVS development. In the previous environment the fingerprint method had been developed as the second patient verification system in addition to the facial verification method. So it was not difficult to add this module to the existing minimally invasive spinal surgery (MISS) ePR. This section summarizes the development, operation procedure, and the current status.
In this chapter we discuss imaging informatics by taking advantage of other existing information technologies (IT) not necessary in medical imaging, and integrating them with medical imaging advances. In particular, we present a location tracking and verification system (LTVS) in clinical environment. Although technologies used in the LTVS are not necessary in the cutting edge of medical imaging and in IT, the combination of these technologies can help resolve patient workflow and patient protection issues in the clinical environment that have been discussed in the imaging informatics community for many years.

We start the presentation by defining what LTVS is and why we need it. Currently available tracking, identification, and verification technologies are introduced. We give a step-by-step modular system integration of the LTVS—from the prototype design and development, to implementation and clinical evaluation of the prototype in an outpatient imaging center, and to cost analysis. The prototype was used to track the movement of the patients and personnel to improve the efficiency in imaging procedure workflow, and safeguard patients in the clinical environment. We conclude with a discussion of a fingerprint scanning module for surgical patient identification and verification to ensure that the person is the right patient to be operated on.

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