Medical Chart Tracking using bar codes - a case study with Holly Patterson Geriatric Center

When Holly Patterson Geriatric Center, a subsidiary of Nassau University Medical Center inquired about using barcodes to track medical charts, we showed them how Travese can be used to achieve thier goals.

Contact Us

I'm in the company of nurses a lot. My wife is a nurse and her friends are nurses. The inability to locate a patient's chart is a common complaint that I've heard all too often. When a facility is already short staffed, misplaced items can be among the top few causes for frustration. Not only is it a waste of time and efficiency, it can strike a blow to overall morale and affect the facility in multitudinous ways.

This is not an argument for or against EMAR (Electronic Medication and Administration Record) or EHR (Electronic Health Record), but rather what can be done now to help alleviate some of the problems that exist in care facilities across the country.

The promise of eliminating paper has been in existence for decades and great strides have been made to this end. Electronic medical records are critical to our present and future with good reason. However elimination of 100% of paper records may not be practical or feasible in all situations.

Nursing homes or long term care facilities are challenged by many factors in this endeavor. Even if they do adopt an electronic approach, it is likely that the paper approach will still be used on the floor and then electronically transcribed later, or the paper approach will be used at times when the electronic systems become unavailable.

This will change over time and will be driven by cost and availability. That is, the cost of systems and availability of systems and staff.

When a facility subscribes to systems that are hosted on the internet or in the cloud, they are subject to all the things that can render the systems temporarily unavailable. The amount of downtime and the frequency that it occurs can vary based on the cause.
Bringing such systems in house sometimes requires additional technical staff and certainly additional manpower to implement them.

The age old problem of "where is it" exists now and will exist for some time to come.

Sometimes medical charts seem to go missing for various reasons. Someone took it and neglected to tell anyone or didn't return it to the proper place, etc.

Companies of all kinds have benefited by implementing tracking systems that use barcodes so why not care facilities?

Unlike implementing EMAR or EHR systems, implementing a barcode tracking system for the purpose of tracking physical medical charts can be quick and simple and the time it saves in locating the physical records can be priceless.

Overview

Try our Android app! You can use your android device to scan barcoded items using the built in camera, or use a Zebra TC52 Android Device to lookup items to find their current location, perform all Traverse transactions like check-in, check-out, move, etc. ← Traverse → ™ Android app

Try our Microsoft app! You can run Traverse on any Windows 10 device. Use your MS Surface-Pro camara to scan barcodes.← Traverse → ™ Microsoft App

Click this link to download Traverse today and start your free one month trial.

Introducing Traverse Barcode Medical Chart Tracker

Some of the information below can be perceived as technical. If some of it seems daunting, just call us and we will help you become comfortable with the system and what it can do for you. 201-728-8809 - we are here to help.

In the videos below you can see the power of our bar code medical chart locator system and the many ways you can find your items. But first a word on YouTube.

If you view a video on YouTube and it seems blurry, the resolution may not be optimal.

Click the gear pictured in the red box and select a higher resolution.

Set the quality to the highest value on the list.

A high level view of how to find items easily using our barcode medical chart locator system. In this video we take you to a system that is already running and illustrate how easy it is to find charts. We also show some of the advanced features like notifications. You can set email and SMS notifications thereby providing action items to folks on the nursing floor.

How to store items and create new charts. Our bar code medical chart locator system is easy to use as illustrated in this video. We demonstrate how you can easily create new charts from existing charts thereby cutting down the amount of actual typing input.

Turning on SSL. SSL is an added measure of security by encrypting the data transfer between the browser and the server hosting our medical chart tracking system. If you are connecting devices to the medical chart locator system via Wi-Fi, then it is probably a good idea to use SSL.

A few simple ways how to customize Traverse for your facility. If you are tracking medical charts, then you probably want the system reflect that. Traverse provides several ways to make your tracking system look like it was designed specifically for your facility.

Here are a few screenshots we put together illustrating the power of Traverse and its ease of use.

Traverse is ideal for a medical chart tracking system.

You can customize the title to your liking and you can even replace the PCS logo with a properly sized logo for your facility.

In this example the title is "Traverse Medical Chart Tracker" and the subtitle is "Intelligent tracking by PCS".

You can insert any text you like here.

The search box provides a quick search for any item in the system. You can type a name or fragment of a name, any detail that may exist on a chart, room number, location, any descriptive information that is associated with a patient or chart and it is listed below to be clicked as pictured here.

Traverse medical chart tracker makes it easy to find everything.

Traverse medical chart tracker helps to store your information intelligently.

Click on a patient to see the patient record. Notice that no sensitive data is stored for this completely fictional patient. You decide how much or little data is stored in Traverse.

Clicking the show / hide items button displays all active charts for the patient and their current location.

You can click any of the charts to take you to the chart record.

Notice that the 2012 chart is checked out.

Your chart thinning policies are easily adopted by the medical chart locator system.

All patient medical charts are a click away.

Traverse stores everything you need to know about your charts.

With a few clicks you can find anything. Traverse is also fully audited. You can find the complete transaction history of any chart by clicking the show / hide history button.

You can also run transaction reports to find any update that has occurred in the system.

If a patient record has been updated or a department has been added you can get a report of the complete history.

The system is browser based so it can be accessed anywhere from within your facility. All you need is a browser and a login. You can access it from your PC, Laptop, tablet, or phone.

Traverse is available on all browser platforms.

Traverse can manage medical charts from your tablet or phone.

Traverse makes is easy to find all of your tracked items.

We created special HTML5 screens specific for nonstandard device sizes. In so doing, Traverse looks good and is useable on your phone or tablet.

You install it at your facility on your own hardware so it is available to you 24x7 and so that all of the data is private. It can only be accessed by those who can access your company network.

You can install it yourself with the aid of our installation guide and instructional video, or we can install it for you either in person or via a screen share session.

Click this link to download the Traverse installation guide V1.

You can install Traverse 1.0 on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019, ...

Click this link to download the Traverse installation guide V2.

You can install Traverse 2.0 on Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, ...

You can connect it to an existing SQL Server or use the Traverse installer to install SQL Express.

You can also use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for added security. If you have ever noticed when you go to your bank's web site the URL is HTTPS instead of HTTP, the "S" is for secure and uses SSL. When SSL is used, the data transmission between your browser and the Web Server is encrypted.

This is just another measure to ensure HIPAA 45 CFR 164.502(a)(1)(iii) compliance.

We are also sensitive to the average care facility's budget and have priced the software, training, and support in a very common sense manner.

Call us for a quote. 201-728-8809

Visit our YouTube channel for how to videos. We are constantly adding new content to help you become creative with Traverse.

← Traverse → ™ is a browser based tool that simplifies your ability to track anything that can be bar-coded. Our bar code tracking system is powerful, versatile, scalable and affordable.

Starting At $799.99 Please Call 201-728-8809 for pricing. Download Traverse today! or let us host it for you in the cloud.

Why Traverse? What's in the name?

We used to joke about how everything is a warehouse. You put stuff in, move it around, and then eventually move it out. Hospitals are warehouses, people come in, move from room to room and then leave. Schools are warehouses, kids come in, move from class to class and then go home, and you get the idea.

A medical chart tracking system is essentially the same, documents enter the system, traverse the office or facility until they end up in their resting destination for a time and then perhaps traverse the office again.

Having enjoyed Rock Climbing for a time, one of our warm up activities was to traverse the lower wall.

When talking about data structures, a common element is a tree and you could write an algorithm to traverse that tree. Traverse has been a word in my vernacular for quite a while and just seemed to fit as a one word description of our tracking system, it’s a name that is a verb, a call to action.

And we will traverse your office to find your documents.

Trav-erse [trav-ers], [truh-vurs]

verb