Reqscan: An open source solution for laboratory requisition scanning, archiving and retrieval
Eviatar Bach
- Audience level:
- Novice
- Category:
- Other
Description
Reqscan is an open-source Python program for patient requisition form (forms used in a clinical setting for medical tests) scanning and retrieval. When used with an auto document feeder (ADF) scanner, it improves the speed and accuracy of retrieval of patient information at a fraction of the price of commercial systems. It has been in use for three years at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, BC.
Abstract
_Full description available in the [article published][1] in the_ Journal of Pathology Informatics
Requisition storage and retrieval are an integral part of the outpatient laboratory testing process. It is frequently necessary to review an original requisition to confirm the ordering physician, patient demographics, diagnostic information, and requested tests. Manual retrieval of a paper requisition is time-consuming and tedious. Although commercial solutions exist for the scanning and archiving of barcoded paper requisitions, the tools to accomplish this are freely available from the open source software community. We present a simple dedicated piece of software, Reqscan, for scanning patient laboratory requisitions, finding all barcode information, and saving the requisition as a portable document format named according the barcode(s) found. This Python application offers a simple solution to patient requisition digitization. Reqscan has been successfully tested and implemented into routine practice for storage and retrieval of outpatient requisitions at St. Paul's Hospital, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
[1]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4338493/
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