In fast-paced healthcare workplaces, efficiency and accuracy are essential. Honeywell SwiftDecoder streamlines how healthcare professionals scan and process critical information, ensuring improved operational efficiency.
“Honeywell has transitioned our 50-year expertise in barcode hardware and turned it into a pure software application,” says Theodore Newman, senior manager of global application engineering for Honeywell.
Barcode scanning plays a vital role in patient safety, inventory management and workflow efficiency while streamlining operations and reducing human error.
“The layer of accuracy that you’ve become used to with Honeywell’s hardware has been turned into a software application with arguably better camera and optics, improving reading ranges and barcode densities,” Newman says.
DISCOVER: How does Honeywell help healthcare organizations optimize workflow performance?
Optimizing Healthcare Scanning With New Software
Honeywell’s SwiftDecoder is an intelligent barcode-decoding software that enhances the speed, accuracy and reliability of barcode scanning.
The software supports a wide range of barcode symbologies, including 1D and 2D barcodes such as QR codes and data matrix codes. It also offers AI-powered image enhancement, ensuring barcodes can be scanned even in challenging conditions such as low lighting, poor print quality or when labels are wrinkled.
“The algorithms that we have are able to stitch together barcodes if they are smeared or torn. The worst thing you can do is decode a barcode and output bad data. We have a lot of safeguards and redundancy checks,” Newman says.
Unlike traditional barcode scanners that rely solely on hardware, SwiftDecoder is a software-based solution that can be integrated into mobile devices, tablets and external cameras. This flexibility lets healthcare providers use existing technology to capture and process barcode data more efficiently, Newman says.
“It’s device-agnostic software or application, depending on which version you have. The idea is that you can leverage any sort of camera you want,” Newman says. “We also have what we call SwiftWedge, which replaces your digital keyboard and overlays on top of any app, adding that scanning or optical character recognition functionality.”
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SwiftDecoder Increases Pharmacy and Lab Safety
Integrating SwiftDecoder into pharmacy and laboratory management systems and mobile devices can help healthcare organizations work more efficiently while reducing the risk of human error.
By integrating SwiftDecoder with existing inventory management systems, SwiftDecoder helps automate inventory tracking, reducing waste and ensuring timely restocking. The software allows technicians to quickly scan and log specimens, even handling several barcodes at once. Its high-speed, high-accuracy barcode reading minimizes errors in processing lab results.
“One of the use cases that happens frequently is batch scans. Instead of individually scanning a single barcode multiple times, we have a batch scan feature where you can scan everything within the field of view,” says Will Mobley, strategic account manager for healthcare at Honeywell. “That speeds up what was 20 individual scans to one, which saves time. When you expand that across an entire organization with hundreds of employees or the whole system, it makes a significant difference.”
SwiftDecoder also ensures patient safety and medication management by verifying dosages, flagging medicines that cannot interact, and alerting providers before adding multiple medications to IVs. Nurses and doctors can use mobile devices equipped with SwiftDecoder to verify prescriptions, track dosages and prevent medication errors.
“There may be expiration dates that are not included, or lot numbers for medications. SwiftDecoder is able to capture those printed texts and capture lot numbers and expiration dates that many people just write down on paper or manually type in,” Mobley says. “There are some things that healthcare workers have gotten used to with the limitations of technology today that can definitely be overcome with SwiftDecoder.”
How To Approach Integration and Implementation
Honeywell deploys a crawl, walk, run strategy for implementing SwiftDecoder, using a phased approach to minimize risk, maximize efficiency and ensure successful adoption.
Newman says the flexibility of the SwiftWedge keyboard can help organizations that need the initial level of barcode software. The mobile device management allows you to deploy scanning functionalities and can immediately add value with no coding required.
“We understand that some organizations either do not have the bandwidth or the software access to modify code. That is where the SwiftDecoder SwiftWedge comes into play. Anyone can deploy this and have barcode scanning that day on your devices,” Newman says.
Honeywell also offers a low-code/no-code option with a user interface that ties to a database.
Finally, the SwiftDecoder software development kit enhances the user experience across various healthcare applications.
“If you want to add SwiftDecoder functionalities to an app or system that you already manage, we can provide the sample code, the documentation and technical team to help support that,” Newman says.
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