5 Key questions on the implementation of biometric technology for patient identification
To implement a biometric identification system, it is crucial to choose the appropriate technology by considering the usage environment, required precision, available budget, and ease of integration with existing systems. This ensures accurate and secure patient identification. Next, we address essential questions to help you make this choice.
Healthcare seeks to provide quality medical care, but faces challenges that can cause harmful errors for patients. These errors affect their health, well-being and generate additional costs, as well as diminish trust in the system.
To ensure patient safety, it is critical to eliminate avoidable harm and reduce risk. This requires the implementation of organized processes, procedures, technologies and environments designed to prevent and mitigate errors.
Common errors include medication prescription failures, surgical interventions, hospital-acquired infections, incorrect diagnoses and unsafe practices in transfusions and injections, and incorrect patient identification.
Accurate identification is essential for patient safety and should be a constant routine for all healthcare professionals. In response to these challenges, the implementation of biometric technology is emerging to ensure accurate identification and improve patient safety. We invite you to read our article Use of biometrics to improve patient safety for information on the implementation of this type of technology in healthcare environments.
While the benefits of implementing a biometric solution for patient identification may seem obvious, understanding the underlying technology can be complex. Biometric technology is dynamic and, depending on the type of biometrics a healthcare organization chooses, the ability to achieve the expected benefits may vary.
Biometrics include different modalities, such as facial, fingerprint, iris and voice recognition, each with its own characteristics, advantages and limitations. The choice of the right technology depends on multiple factors, such as the usage environment, required accuracy, available budget and ease of integration with existing systems.
Therefore, it is crucial that hospitals and medical centers conduct a thorough assessment of their needs and capabilities before implementing a biometric solution.
To assist in this process, we present five key questions that healthcare organizations should ask during the research and due diligence phase. These questions will guide them in selecting the most effective biometric identification solution.
1. How can we ensure the hygiene and security of biometric devices in a hospital environment?
The use of biometric devices that require physical contact, such as fingerprint readers, forces organizations to follow strict disinfection protocols to comply with infection control regulations. However, even with proper hygiene, these devices can still be a risk factor for patient safety, as cleaning products cannot completely eliminate all pathogens.
In addition, contact-based biometric modalities can negatively affect patient acceptance. Those who are reluctant to touch a device may refuse to use the identification system, compromising the effectiveness of the process.
In contexts where contact with devices represents a significant risk of disease transmission, iris recognition presents itself as a highly suitable option. Not only is this technique one of the most secure forms of biometric identification, but it also outperforms facial recognition in scenarios with a large volume of subjects to be identified by avoiding physical contact altogether.
2. Is biometric technology based on one-to-many (1:N) or one-to-few (1:n) segmented searches?
The search for patients using one-to-many (1:N) identification techniques involves comparing the biometric pattern captured from the patient at that moment with the patterns of the entire population stored in the biometric database. On the other hand, segmented search techniques, or one-to-few (1:n), involve comparing the biometric pattern captured at that moment with those of a portion of the population or, in other words, a section of the biometric database. This requires providing the system with some filtering data, such as the patient’s sex or age, before initiating the search.
If the goal is to achieve unequivocal patient identification to enhance the safety of care processes, the only feasible solution is to use biometric systems that implement search methods based on one-to-many (1:N) comparison algorithms, utilizing biometric technologies that offer high performance and accuracy even in such searches. This is the case with fingerprint and iris recognition, although iris recognition is preferable for very large populations since, with fingerprints, the number of samples per user (e.g., using two fingers for identification) would need to be increased to achieve acceptable performance and accuracy rates.
There are also verification-based systems (1:1): the first step in the process is identifying the individual through a username, card, or some other method. This way, the system selects the previously registered pattern from the database for that user. Subsequently, the system captures the biometric feature and compares it with the stored one. It is a simple process, as it only needs to compare two samples, resulting in either a positive or negative match.
3. Is it possible to identify patients who are unconscious, undocumented or unable to declare their identity?
Biometric systems can simplify the identification of patients who arrive unconscious, undocumented or unable to communicate their identity.
To achieve this, it is crucial to implement and support biometric technologies that perform one-to-many (1:N) searches. In these cases, speed is of the essence and no time can be wasted entering additional data, such as an age range, before identifying the patient using their biometric credentials. In addition, not all biometric technologies are suitable for identifying unconscious trauma patients.
For example, facial recognition may be ineffective if the face is deformed, and iris recognition may fail if the eyes are turned upside down or moving rapidly in an uncontrolled manner. In these situations, fingerprint recognition is the best option because of its advantages, ease and speed of use.
4. Can the biometric identification solution recognize the patient at any point of contact?
Digitization in healthcare is creating new points of patient interaction, such as kiosks, patient portals, mobile apps and telemedicine. Biometric systems must be able to provide accurate and consistent patient identification at each of these touch points within modern healthcare organizations.
To meet this requirement, the biometric system must be multimodal, it must support a variety of biometric technologies to identify or verify a patient. For example, a system can use facial recognition (1:1) to verify patient identity in a mobile telemedicine application and, at the same time, it can employ iris recognition (1:N) to identify patients in the hospital admission process.
5. What is the size of the population to be registered in the system?
To properly size the system, it is crucial to know the population size to be registered, as this will influence the number of biometric samples needed for each user to ensure high reliability in identification.
The registration process, or enrollment, is fundamental to the success of the implementation. Opting for a small number of samples in the short term (such as a single fingerprint per user) can be problematic if the target population grows, as more samples may be needed and re-enrollment might be required.
It is essential for the hospital or health center to answer the following questions to properly size the system:
- How many people need to be registered in the system?
- What is the maximum timeframe for completing the registration of the entire target population?
- Should the registration be planned in multiple phases?
- How is the population to be registered distributed? Is it concentrated in a geographic area (like a city) or dispersed (like a country)?
- According to the geographic distribution and population volume in different areas, how many registration centers will be needed?
- Are there any legislations, official norms, or corporate regulations that need to be considered during the registration process (for example, the LOPD in Spain)?
- What valid official documents as proof of identity should each person provide to ensure that their biometric data is correctly associated with their identity (biographic data)?
It is essential to turn to specialists in biometric identification systems to gain a thorough understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the main biometric technologies, such as fingerprint, iris and facial recognition, in order to choose the most appropriate modalities for your organization.
Find out how Verázial ID Health can help you ensure the identification of your organization’s patients and employees.
Contact us for a demonstration and/or personalized study
Referencias
- Unrecognizable doctor hands typing on keyboard [Freepik]
5 Key questions on the implementation of biometric technology for patient identification
To implement a biometric identification system, it is crucial to choose the appropriate technology by considering the usage environment, required precision, available budget, and ease of integration with existing systems. This ensures accurate and secure patient identification. Next, we address essential questions to help you make this choice.
Healthcare seeks to provide quality medical care, but faces challenges that can cause harmful errors for patients. These errors affect their health, well-being and generate additional costs, as well as diminish trust in the system.
To ensure patient safety, it is critical to eliminate avoidable harm and reduce risk. This requires the implementation of organized processes, procedures, technologies and environments designed to prevent and mitigate errors.
Common errors include medication prescription failures, surgical interventions, hospital-acquired infections, incorrect diagnoses and unsafe practices in transfusions and injections, and incorrect patient identification.
Accurate identification is essential for patient safety and should be a constant routine for all healthcare professionals. In response to these challenges, the implementation of biometric technology is emerging to ensure accurate identification and improve patient safety. We invite you to read our article Use of biometrics to improve patient safety for information on the implementation of this type of technology in healthcare environments.
While the benefits of implementing a biometric solution for patient identification may seem obvious, understanding the underlying technology can be complex. Biometric technology is dynamic and, depending on the type of biometrics a healthcare organization chooses, the ability to achieve the expected benefits may vary.
Biometrics include different modalities, such as facial, fingerprint, iris and voice recognition, each with its own characteristics, advantages and limitations. The choice of the right technology depends on multiple factors, such as the usage environment, required accuracy, available budget and ease of integration with existing systems.
Therefore, it is crucial that hospitals and medical centers conduct a thorough assessment of their needs and capabilities before implementing a biometric solution.
To assist in this process, we present five key questions that healthcare organizations should ask during the research and due diligence phase. These questions will guide them in selecting the most effective biometric identification solution.
1. How can we ensure the hygiene and security of biometric devices in a hospital environment?
The use of biometric devices that require physical contact, such as fingerprint readers, forces organizations to follow strict disinfection protocols to comply with infection control regulations. However, even with proper hygiene, these devices can still be a risk factor for patient safety, as cleaning products cannot completely eliminate all pathogens.
In addition, contact-based biometric modalities can negatively affect patient acceptance. Those who are reluctant to touch a device may refuse to use the identification system, compromising the effectiveness of the process.
In contexts where contact with devices represents a significant risk of disease transmission, iris recognition presents itself as a highly suitable option. Not only is this technique one of the most secure forms of biometric identification, but it also outperforms facial recognition in scenarios with a large volume of subjects to be identified by avoiding physical contact altogether.
2. Is biometric technology based on one-to-many (1:N) or one-to-few (1:n) segmented searches?
The search for patients using one-to-many (1:N) identification techniques involves comparing the biometric pattern captured from the patient at that moment with the patterns of the entire population stored in the biometric database. On the other hand, segmented search techniques, or one-to-few (1:n), involve comparing the biometric pattern captured at that moment with those of a portion of the population or, in other words, a section of the biometric database. This requires providing the system with some filtering data, such as the patient’s sex or age, before initiating the search.
If the goal is to achieve unequivocal patient identification to enhance the safety of care processes, the only feasible solution is to use biometric systems that implement search methods based on one-to-many (1:N) comparison algorithms, utilizing biometric technologies that offer high performance and accuracy even in such searches. This is the case with fingerprint and iris recognition, although iris recognition is preferable for very large populations since, with fingerprints, the number of samples per user (e.g., using two fingers for identification) would need to be increased to achieve acceptable performance and accuracy rates.
There are also verification-based systems (1:1): the first step in the process is identifying the individual through a username, card, or some other method. This way, the system selects the previously registered pattern from the database for that user. Subsequently, the system captures the biometric feature and compares it with the stored one. It is a simple process, as it only needs to compare two samples, resulting in either a positive or negative match.
3. Is it possible to identify patients who are unconscious, undocumented or unable to declare their identity?
Biometric systems can simplify the identification of patients who arrive unconscious, undocumented or unable to communicate their identity.
To achieve this, it is crucial to implement and support biometric technologies that perform one-to-many (1:N) searches. In these cases, speed is of the essence and no time can be wasted entering additional data, such as an age range, before identifying the patient using their biometric credentials. In addition, not all biometric technologies are suitable for identifying unconscious trauma patients.
For example, facial recognition may be ineffective if the face is deformed, and iris recognition may fail if the eyes are turned upside down or moving rapidly in an uncontrolled manner. In these situations, fingerprint recognition is the best option because of its advantages, ease and speed of use.
4. Can the biometric identification solution recognize the patient at any point of contact?
Digitization in healthcare is creating new points of patient interaction, such as kiosks, patient portals, mobile apps and telemedicine. Biometric systems must be able to provide accurate and consistent patient identification at each of these touch points within modern healthcare organizations.
To meet this requirement, the biometric system must be multimodal, it must support a variety of biometric technologies to identify or verify a patient. For example, a system can use facial recognition (1:1) to verify patient identity in a mobile telemedicine application and, at the same time, it can employ iris recognition (1:N) to identify patients in the hospital admission process.
5. What is the size of the population to be registered in the system?
To properly size the system, it is crucial to know the population size to be registered, as this will influence the number of biometric samples needed for each user to ensure high reliability in identification.
The registration process, or enrollment, is fundamental to the success of the implementation. Opting for a small number of samples in the short term (such as a single fingerprint per user) can be problematic if the target population grows, as more samples may be needed and re-enrollment might be required.
It is essential for the hospital or health center to answer the following questions to properly size the system:
- How many people need to be registered in the system?
- What is the maximum timeframe for completing the registration of the entire target population?
- Should the registration be planned in multiple phases?
- How is the population to be registered distributed? Is it concentrated in a geographic area (like a city) or dispersed (like a country)?
- According to the geographic distribution and population volume in different areas, how many registration centers will be needed?
- Are there any legislations, official norms, or corporate regulations that need to be considered during the registration process (for example, the LOPD in Spain)?
- What valid official documents as proof of identity should each person provide to ensure that their biometric data is correctly associated with their identity (biographic data)?
It is essential to turn to specialists in biometric identification systems to gain a thorough understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the main biometric technologies, such as fingerprint, iris and facial recognition, in order to choose the most appropriate modalities for your organization.
Find out how Verázial ID Health can help you ensure the identification of your organization’s patients and employees.
Contact us for a demonstration and/or personalized study
Referencias
- Unrecognizable doctor hands typing on keyboard [Freepik]
5 Key questions on the implementation of biometric technology for patient identification
To implement a biometric identification system, it is crucial to choose the appropriate technology by considering the usage environment, required precision, available budget, and ease of integration with existing systems. This ensures accurate and secure patient identification. Next, we address essential questions to help you make this choice.
Healthcare seeks to provide quality medical care, but faces challenges that can cause harmful errors for patients. These errors affect their health, well-being and generate additional costs, as well as diminish trust in the system.
To ensure patient safety, it is critical to eliminate avoidable harm and reduce risk. This requires the implementation of organized processes, procedures, technologies and environments designed to prevent and mitigate errors.
Common errors include medication prescription failures, surgical interventions, hospital-acquired infections, incorrect diagnoses and unsafe practices in transfusions and injections, and incorrect patient identification.
Accurate identification is essential for patient safety and should be a constant routine for all healthcare professionals. In response to these challenges, the implementation of biometric technology is emerging to ensure accurate identification and improve patient safety. We invite you to read our article Use of biometrics to improve patient safety for information on the implementation of this type of technology in healthcare environments.
While the benefits of implementing a biometric solution for patient identification may seem obvious, understanding the underlying technology can be complex. Biometric technology is dynamic and, depending on the type of biometrics a healthcare organization chooses, the ability to achieve the expected benefits may vary.
Biometrics include different modalities, such as facial, fingerprint, iris and voice recognition, each with its own characteristics, advantages and limitations. The choice of the right technology depends on multiple factors, such as the usage environment, required accuracy, available budget and ease of integration with existing systems.
Therefore, it is crucial that hospitals and medical centers conduct a thorough assessment of their needs and capabilities before implementing a biometric solution.
To assist in this process, we present five key questions that healthcare organizations should ask during the research and due diligence phase. These questions will guide them in selecting the most effective biometric identification solution.
1. How can we ensure the hygiene and security of biometric devices in a hospital environment?
The use of biometric devices that require physical contact, such as fingerprint readers, forces organizations to follow strict disinfection protocols to comply with infection control regulations. However, even with proper hygiene, these devices can still be a risk factor for patient safety, as cleaning products cannot completely eliminate all pathogens.
In addition, contact-based biometric modalities can negatively affect patient acceptance. Those who are reluctant to touch a device may refuse to use the identification system, compromising the effectiveness of the process.
In contexts where contact with devices represents a significant risk of disease transmission, iris recognition presents itself as a highly suitable option. Not only is this technique one of the most secure forms of biometric identification, but it also outperforms facial recognition in scenarios with a large volume of subjects to be identified by avoiding physical contact altogether.
2. Is biometric technology based on one-to-many (1:N) or one-to-few (1:n) segmented searches?
The search for patients using one-to-many (1:N) identification techniques involves comparing the biometric pattern captured from the patient at that moment with the patterns of the entire population stored in the biometric database. On the other hand, segmented search techniques, or one-to-few (1:n), involve comparing the biometric pattern captured at that moment with those of a portion of the population or, in other words, a section of the biometric database. This requires providing the system with some filtering data, such as the patient’s sex or age, before initiating the search.
If the goal is to achieve unequivocal patient identification to enhance the safety of care processes, the only feasible solution is to use biometric systems that implement search methods based on one-to-many (1:N) comparison algorithms, utilizing biometric technologies that offer high performance and accuracy even in such searches. This is the case with fingerprint and iris recognition, although iris recognition is preferable for very large populations since, with fingerprints, the number of samples per user (e.g., using two fingers for identification) would need to be increased to achieve acceptable performance and accuracy rates.
There are also verification-based systems (1:1): the first step in the process is identifying the individual through a username, card, or some other method. This way, the system selects the previously registered pattern from the database for that user. Subsequently, the system captures the biometric feature and compares it with the stored one. It is a simple process, as it only needs to compare two samples, resulting in either a positive or negative match.
3. Is it possible to identify patients who are unconscious, undocumented or unable to declare their identity?
Biometric systems can simplify the identification of patients who arrive unconscious, undocumented or unable to communicate their identity.
To achieve this, it is crucial to implement and support biometric technologies that perform one-to-many (1:N) searches. In these cases, speed is of the essence and no time can be wasted entering additional data, such as an age range, before identifying the patient using their biometric credentials. In addition, not all biometric technologies are suitable for identifying unconscious trauma patients.
For example, facial recognition may be ineffective if the face is deformed, and iris recognition may fail if the eyes are turned upside down or moving rapidly in an uncontrolled manner. In these situations, fingerprint recognition is the best option because of its advantages, ease and speed of use.
4. Can the biometric identification solution recognize the patient at any point of contact?
Digitization in healthcare is creating new points of patient interaction, such as kiosks, patient portals, mobile apps and telemedicine. Biometric systems must be able to provide accurate and consistent patient identification at each of these touch points within modern healthcare organizations.
To meet this requirement, the biometric system must be multimodal, it must support a variety of biometric technologies to identify or verify a patient. For example, a system can use facial recognition (1:1) to verify patient identity in a mobile telemedicine application and, at the same time, it can employ iris recognition (1:N) to identify patients in the hospital admission process.
5. What is the size of the population to be registered in the system?
To properly size the system, it is crucial to know the population size to be registered, as this will influence the number of biometric samples needed for each user to ensure high reliability in identification.
The registration process, or enrollment, is fundamental to the success of the implementation. Opting for a small number of samples in the short term (such as a single fingerprint per user) can be problematic if the target population grows, as more samples may be needed and re-enrollment might be required.
It is essential for the hospital or health center to answer the following questions to properly size the system:
- How many people need to be registered in the system?
- What is the maximum timeframe for completing the registration of the entire target population?
- Should the registration be planned in multiple phases?
- How is the population to be registered distributed? Is it concentrated in a geographic area (like a city) or dispersed (like a country)?
- According to the geographic distribution and population volume in different areas, how many registration centers will be needed?
- Are there any legislations, official norms, or corporate regulations that need to be considered during the registration process (for example, the LOPD in Spain)?
- What valid official documents as proof of identity should each person provide to ensure that their biometric data is correctly associated with their identity (biographic data)?
It is essential to turn to specialists in biometric identification systems to gain a thorough understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the main biometric technologies, such as fingerprint, iris and facial recognition, in order to choose the most appropriate modalities for your organization.
Find out how Verázial ID Health can help you ensure the identification of your organization’s patients and employees.
Contact us for a demonstration and/or personalized study
Referencias
- Unrecognizable doctor hands typing on keyboard [Freepik]
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