Priority Barcodes

The Midwife-EMR system has the capability, but not the requirement, of using priority barcodes in order to help manage patient workflow. This really only makes sense in contexts where there are many dozens or more prenatal exams being done in a day. This is one means to allow the patients to flow through the system in an orderly and first-come first-serve basis.

When patients arrive for their prenatal exams, each are given a priority number which is a laminated badge with a number on it. The badges are collected after the exam and are reused the next day. This system was in place and being used successfully before this software was developed.

The integration of the priority numbers with the software is achieved by a barcode being attached to each badge that allows staff to scan the badge at the various points of interaction during the prenatal exam (see Workflow). In the image below, only the barcode (including the human-readable number) needs to be attached to the badge. The priority number displayed is just to make it easy to know which badge the barcode gets attached to.

The barcodes are used in conjunction with the priority system to insure that the priority numbers input into the system upon client arrival are accurate. Using barcodes insures that by accepting as input the barcodes, which are random 6 digit numbers, as opposed to the priority numbers themselves. The barcodes are tied to the priority numbers that they represent by the priority table. In essence, this is eliminating mis-keying by staff of priority numbers because a mis-key of a barcode will be detected as an invalid barcode.