Most regulations dictating the application of unique identifiers on drug packages also dictate specific data be encoded into a machine-readable barcode, and human readable text. The purpose of the machine-readable unique identifiers is obvious–to allow computers to read the product’s unique identifier quickly and accurately. The purpose of the human-readable unique identifier is less well-understood. Many believe it is to allow manual entry of the barcode contents when the barcode is unreadable for any reason. Others believe it is there to allow health professionals to see the details of the product in their hands as either a check on what the machine reads, or in the event that a machine isn’t present. Probably, it is there for all these reasons.
For this essay, I’d like to explore the use of the human readable text for the purpose of manually entering the unique identifier when…Click to continue reading this essay FREE on C4SCS