Difficulties with patient identification can have serious consequences in IVF treatment, as recent events have shown. Barcoding of samples may provide the answer
There are an estimated 40,000 IVF cycles carried out each year in the UK alone, across about 100 clinics, and while the clinics generally manage the process with the utmost care a mistake may still happen - as recent events have shown.
When you walk through the cycle, process tracking a sample, it is possible to see where the risk of error lies.
Every time a sample is transferred, the new vessel needs marking with various patient specific data, this could mean re-creating patient information five to eight times, increasing the risk of incorrect information by the same multiplier and by the multiplier again when one sample is then divided into many more samples.
In many cases this data is being written on the vial, petri dish, or straw using a pen and then recording the duplicate information in a database either by pen or electronically.
Some of the vessels have a very small surface area to write information, making tracking near on impossible with some styles of writing, leaving room for interpretation, accentuated when the sample has been cryogenically frozen then thawed.
"This system has evolved mainly because there hadn't been any other solution to withstand all of the process environments." Said Alaster Purchase, European market manager of Brady.
"That is until now: following recent events, and evaluating some of the alleged causes, a development began, to create a self adhesive material combination which delivers a consistently high performance throughout all the processes within an IVF cycle.
This point would prove critical to ensure the patient ID stayed adhered to the sample, in conditions where materials were failing.
This material also had to be printable with text and high definition barcodes resistant to chemicals and abrasion so the image would not be damaged or destroyed in the process." The introduction of a complete barcoding process will dramatically reduce the risk of error, controlling the whole process without have to reproduce patient data at any point.
The initial unique patient ID on the patient file could automatically reproduce the sample ID for all of the vessels used in the process, eradicating the need to re-write the sample ID a multitude of times.