Cancer care improvement through positive patient identification technologies

Abstract

One of the information technology applications in the cancer care process is positive identification of patients; several studies show that misidentification in cancer care may cause many problems such as lots of medical errors due to wrong person. Improvement in cancer care processes for positive patient identification through information technology is necessary to reduce mortality and morbidity rate; because errors due to misidentification decrease patient safety. For this reason patient identity information should be clear and explicit. Applying new technologies and standardized methods of patient positive identification can prevent these errors; and enhance the quality of cancer care process. In this literature review, search was conducted with keywords including cancer, positive identification, patient misidentification, information technology, Wireless networks, Barcodes, RFID, and Biometric in Science Direct, Google Scholar, and PubMed databases since 1989 until now. This study explains significant technologies such as Wireless networks, Barcodes, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and Biometric tools for positive patient identification in cancer care.