Automatic Identification and Data Capture for Patient Identification
Summary
- Hospital
- Maternity
- Mental health
- Social care
- Urgent and Emergency Care
Documentation
This standard and the change introduced in this release may be used with immediate effect.
Where organisations choose to implement the changes introduced in this release, conformance with the standard is due by 31 December 2020. This standard defines how to encode the NHS approved patient identifiers into the GS1 DataMatrix barcode (a two-dimensional barcode) and covers production, verification and printing rules for the barcode. The resulting data set is the Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) for Patient Identification Data Set.
This standard supports the accurate, timely and safer identification of NHS patients in England, by using open standards for positive patient identification. The standard uses ISB 0099: Patient Identifiers for Identity Bands and the GS1 System of Standards for code numbering and barcoding, which is outlined in ISB 0108: AIDC: Automatic Identification and Data Capture.
Note: this standard is not mandatory for providers, but where providers do choose to use barcoded patient identifiers, they MUST conform to this standard and ensure that all mandatory data items are configured accordingly.
About this change
This change to the standard brings it in line with existing GS1 standards by allowing:
- The new use of an SRIN (Service Relation Instance Number) which allows the episode of care to be included in the printed wristband
- The use of a GLN (Global Location Number) to identify the hospital where the wristband was printed in conjunction with ODS code and the local patient identifier, when the NHS Number is not available.
- In addition to the two new data items, the following existing data items were updated to align with the NHS Data Model and Dictionary:
- ORGANISATION IDENTIFIER (CODE OF PROVIDER) is now between three to six alphanumeric characters and MANDATORY
- LOCAL PATIENT IDENTIFIER (EXTENDED) is now up to 20 alphanumeric characters and MANDATORY
Where organisations choose to implement the changes introduced in this release, conformance with the standard is due by 31 December 2020.