PATIENT IDENTIFICATION FOR POINT OF CARE DIAGNOSTICS

摘要

A patient presses a finger concurrently against a needle (14) of a collection container (12) and a fingerprint surface (22, 52). In one embodiment, the patient's fingerprint is read electronically by a scanner (24) and correlated with a container serial number (16). In another embodiment, the patient's fingerprint is embossed in a foil layer (52). An analyzer assembly (40, 40' 40'') analyzes the biological sample and reads either the container serial number or scans the fingerprint carrying layer (52) and sends the test results and either the fingerprint or container identification to a patient memory (30). Using the fingerprint information, a processor (32) correlates the test results with a record (60) of a corresponding patient. Alternately or additionally, the analyzer assembly includes a DNA analyzer (70) which measures preselected DNA characteristics (76) of the sample. The processor (32) compares the measured DNA subset characteristics with DNA subset characteristics (66) in the patient records to correlate or confirm the correlation of the analysis results with the proper patient.