Home // International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, volume 13, numbers 1 and 2, 2021 // View article

An Effective Biometric Patient Identification System for Health Organizations

Authors:
Eman Buhagiar
Clifford De Raffaele

Keywords: medical errors; health organizations; biometrics; patient identification; face recognition

Abstract:
Medical errors, such as patient misidentification, are the reason for around 2.6 million deaths per annum and around $42 billion in costs for health organizations in low to middle-income countries. While wristbands are the most common method for identifying patients, they can be easily misplaced and may contain missing or inaccurate information as this study shows. This may result in wrong medications and surgeries and in some instances, even preventable deaths along with liabilities for the health organizations. An in-depth literature review is conducted in this study and the current methods and process for identifying patients are also investigated, accompanied by a comparison of existing patient identification solutions, as well as issues and concerns about health data protection and privacy. Following this, the system requirements are determined through a qualitative analysis from a questionnaire distributed to different healthcare professionals. Subsequently, the effectiveness of biometric technology for patient identification through face recognition is examined. The paper finally proposes and evaluates a proof of concept with promising results for minimizing patient identification errors.

Pages: 80 to 91

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2021. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2021

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2660