Community Healthcare System hospitals are among the first in the country to use barcoding technology to reduce identification errors in laboratory tests and get faster results.

Community Hospital in Munster, St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago and St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart are using the same technology that companies use to track packages on laboratory specimens. The True Positive ID Barcode Tracking System assigns each tissue sample a number that is held in a computer database. The system reduces errors caused by illegible handwriting, typos and matching the wrong specimen to the wrong label while using durable labels that can withstand the heat and chemical process of tests.

“Investing in groundbreaking technology, such as the new specimen tracking system, enables our hospitals to attain new levels of patient safety and security, and, set a new standard in the quality care we provide,” says John Gorski, chief operating officer for Community Healthcare System.

Each year Community Healthcare System’s central laboratory processes about 150,000 surgical specimens. Before the barcode tracking system, each specimen had handwritten labels used to create an identification number.