How Facial Recognition Boosts the Patient Experience and Drives Good Vitals Across Healthcare Organizations

There’s no room for identity mistakes in healthcare. Not only can patient misidentification become a fatal flaw (when the wrong records tied to the wrong patient lead to the wrong medicines/procedures being administered/performed), but inaccuracies can really drag down a patient’s experience and the overall health of a practice. Workflow efficiencies suffer, the quality of patient care is degraded, and the pace of insurance claim payouts are hindered. Patient misidentification costs the healthcare system billions of dollars each year! 

There’s no reason for identity mistakes in healthcare today. AI-powered facial recognition technologies paired with sophisticated patient authentication and engagement platforms are available to help healthcare organizations modernize and remove the chance of identification errors. 

If you don’t already have a biometrics treatment plan in place to protect your patients and improve office workflow — read the following “must-haves” to select and implement a sound solution for biometric patient authentication and identification.

Prescribe Good Patient Identification 

Accurate and seamless patient verification and identification based on facial recognition technology drives many efficiencies across healthcare organizations — from pre-visit to arrival to post-visit. Not only is the use of biometrics the best method for combatting misidentification, its application also automates office procedures to deliver impactful services at every patient touchpoint and for tasks throughout the facility. 

Some benefits of administering facial recognition for patient identification include:

• Touchless and hygienic patient identification
• Irrefutable proof of presence
• Easy, seamless patient check-in and verification
• Medical record accuracy (one face linked to one patient)
• Fraud prevention and fraud investigation aid
• Assurance that the right treatment is administered to the right patient
• Streamlined clinician workflows
• Secure patient care while protecting patient data

It all rolls up into an exemplary patient experience and vigorous healthcare regimen — with faster time to revenues for an improved bottom line.

The Anatomy of a Highly Accurate Facial Recognition Camera System

A solid dose of strong authentication requires an exceptional patient authentication platform integrated with facial recognition technology to deliver fast, accurate patient identification. This combination modernizes healthcare practices, propels patient care and safety, and elevates end-to-end patient experiences. 

When it comes to selecting a facial recognition camera for healthcare environments, webcams are simply subpar. These basic capture devices are incapable of delivering the high levels of accuracy required for unquestionable patient authentication and identification today. 

Incorporating face biometrics into the process is a game changer for the healthcare field. To guarantee good health for your organization, consider the following checklist based on best-in-class features afforded by leading facial recognition camera offerings today: 

• Impeccable Accuracy. Find an offering that fuses artificial intelligence (AI) with the latest machine learning algorithms to ensure accuracy when identifying and authenticating individuals. Precise capture techniques overcome real-world facial recognition obstacles such as variations in lighting conditions, pose, expression, background, clothing and more. 
• Unbiased Matching Performance. A common challenge with facial recognition technologies is matching certain demographics. Select a matching algorithm that’s developed and trained using an extensive, ethically sourced dataset with millions of images across ages and racial characteristics. This ensures sufficient data diversity to defend against matching bias.
• Industry-Leading Presentation Attack Detection (PAD). PAD is the process of detecting spoof attempts when fraudsters try to trick the camera system by using 3D masks, high-quality pictures or digital images. Look for biometric technologies that offer advanced PAD to help combat this damaging condition.
• Edge Processing. Strong camera identification systems perform facial capture, matching, recognition, template extraction and liveness detection all at the edge — that is, within the camera device itself. This important feature brings several advantages to healthcare companies:
  • Reduces bandwidth constraints and delivers fast, reliable performance by eliminating latency caused by bandwidth inefficiency or the need to send data via the network or to the cloud 
  • Provides maximum system protection and data security as all biometric processing is performed locally and a user’s personally identifiable information stays at the source where it’s generated 
  • Supports compliance efforts around today’s data privacy regulations, such as HIPAA and GDPR 

A Good Prognosis: HID Facial Recognition + CERTIFY Health Platform

The prognosis for positive patient identification is excellent when facial recognition technologies are applied across healthcare venues. HID’s proven U.ARE.U™ Camera Identification System integrated with CERTIFY Health’s state-of-the-art patient engagement and authentication platform lifts all areas within healthcare.

We invite you to examine HID’s comprehensive biometric offerings for healthcare to explore options for your organization when it comes to delivering an extraordinary patient experience.  

Additional resources: 

• Learn more about HID + CERTIFY Health
• Read our eBook and infographic about how biometrics reinvent patient identification and safety
• Explore HID’s broader biometric offerings