Patient IDs and bar code input and output

Finding recurring patients in the system often creates trouble due to lack of standard spelling of names and lack of national IDs. To ease identification, other patient systems print bar code labels at the health booklet which the patient brings, see below.

The INF5750 project should develop ways of bar or QR code input and output for DHIS that can work on

1. Browsers on laptops and desktops
2. Browsers on Android tablets
3. The Android DHIS app

Identification of a patient should work in the following way in the Tracker capture:

When the user sets the cursor in the "Search for patient" field and scans the code, the code should be entered in the search field and the system should search for the patient. If the code has been created in a health facility which is not on the same server, the DHIS should not find the patient but rather start registering a new patient with this code. 

At the end of registration of a new patient, the Tracker capture should print a new label with code and patient name. 

The same functionality could be applied to the Event capture, for instance for registration of medical equipment. 

Lab specimens could also be identified with such labels, implying that they should be printable when requesting a lab test.

I/O for patient IDs is first priority, but the lab example ilustrates that bar code printing should be extendable to all data elements.

The project can be extended to a master thesis under an EU funded project on maternal health patient systems in four countries. There, the DHIS solution should be harmonized with a patient system from another vendor (the example in the picture) and with the national ID cards in South Africa.