Biometrics: Coming Soon to A Hospital Near You

With biometric technologies rapidly improving and prices dropping, more and more industries and sectors are looking to improve security and data management with these capabilities. Amusement parks, graduate school tests and even community colleges are already taking the plunge, and healthcare centers nationwide are next with smart cards, fingerprint, vascular and iris biometrics making appearances in select hospitals.

Healthcare IT consultant Mike Wisz points out in this article that healthcare centers are hotbeds for misidentification, privacy breaches, transcription errors and insurance fraud -- it was only a matter of time before these technologies made their way into ORs and hospital wings to improve the accuracy and integrity of medical care. In a service industry with drastic consequences, utilizing biometrics to automate authentication procedures has long been in the works. However, kinks still need to be worked out to ensure the technology's long-term viability in the industry.

Implementing fingerprinting in hospitals, in particular, poses some interesting challenges. The typical procedure involves users manually entering a user ID, then pressing their exposed index finger over the reading device. Read: prints require skin contact with the device, and therefore are susceptible to germs and bacteria spreading. In a hospital? I don't think so. A few more hurdles for that one...

Vascular and iris biometrics, on the other hand, are up and coming and do not require skin contact; however, they do come with much larger pricetags and untested patient waters.

Urban Health Plan in Bronx, N.Y. is one of the first health centers in the country to utilize iris identification technology to perform instantaneous iris pattern scans in order to effectively authenticate individuals. Vascular biometrics, on the other hand, circumvent contact issues between readers and people by scanning underneath the skin via passive infrared technology to illuminate veins and record images associated uniquely to individuals. Both remain largely unfamiliar to patients, and in such a serious environment as a hospital offers, that obstacle will be hard to bypass.

However, the payoffs are pretty significant -- like in other industries such as retail, we can predict that the investment in upgraded biometrics equipment for hospitals will be most quickly apparent in reduced insurance and fraud cases, while also continuing to address ongoing issues surrounding the misidentification of patients. Seems simple enough, but mistakes still do happen.

I don't know about you, but if given the option, I'd rather have my irises scanned or fingerprints taken that having to stare down all those mountains of paperwork. But even better than both might be good old facial recognition. No touching, no staring, and no scanning. Hospitals have enough of that already.

IHF Roundup: No More Lost Luggage in Lisbon and Milan, Biometric System Deployments Abound and Other Top Headlines This Week

Looks like customer complaints over lost baggage have sparked change -- at least in Europe. Both the Lisbon Airport and Milan’s Malpensa Airport have switched to RFID-enabled baggage tracking systems, eliminating unreliable bar-coded tagging from transfer baggage procedures. Many Americans will be thrilled at the thought of this initiative making its way overseas, particularly this guy.

Robots may be next on the scene to rescue injured soldiers -- or protect the coast and waters from pirates! Researchers hope that the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital will be replaced by a robotic "Trauma Pod" within ten years -- think M*A*S*H but with robotic surgeons and nurses instead. In due time, the robots will be able to insert intravenous lines and even deliver drugs to patients. Wow.

The Pentagon is also looking to utilize robotics in another field of Homeland Security to prevent piracy and terrorism in waterways. Unmanned "bot boats" can be deployed from the shores, helicopter and parachutes, can chase and ram vessels, and even utilize weapons like water cannons and sound-blast devices to scare off predatory ships. From the looks of other robotics technology on the rise, seeing robots on the water might not be so strange -- particularly if they're feeding you at the dinner table or performing surgery at the hospital. Great pictorial feature from the Boston Globe to check out here.

With the International Biometrics Group reporting expected growth of the global biometrics market to jump from $3.4 billion to $9.4 billion between 2009 and 2014, it's no surprise that fingerprint authentication, iris scans and facial recognition systems have started to pop up in areas like hospitals and even schools (more around this to come next week). While airports have long utilized biometrics in customs and security checkpoints, biometric-enabled access control is another feature on the rise, and standards for the technology's deployment are finally starting to be put in place.

Looks like South Korea is itching to get a jumpstart in that growing market. As a pioneering country in the security systems and equipment industry with a rich history as a technological innovator, it hopes that this experience will propel it into the manufacturing of the four key biometric authentication technologies: fingerprint, iris, face and vein recognition.

Sooner or later, biometric and surveillance technologies, previously isolated to law enforcement and government agencies, will find themselves in every mundane aspect of life. You might even find evidence of them in your own body -- or a friend's.