Brian Shane reports:
At schools in Pinellas County, Fla., students aren’t paying for lunch with cash or a card, but with a wave of their hand over a palm scanner.
“It’s so quick that a child could be standing in line, call mom and say, ‘I forgot my lunch money today.’ She’s by her computer, runs her card, and by the time the child is at the front of the line, it’s already recorded,” says Art Dunham, director of food services for Pinellas County Schools.
[…]
A palm scan’s precision record-keeping also avoids possible confusion if patients have the same name. For instance, a hospital system in the Houston area with a database of 3.5 million patients has 2,488 women in it named Maria Garcia – and 231 of them have the same date of birth, Bertrams says.
HT Systems president David Wiener won’t reveal revenue but says that since 2007, they’ve got more than 160 hospitals for clients and have scanned more than 5 million patients.
Read more on USA Today.
I think we can probably all agree that preventing confusion in identifying and treating patients is a good thing. Is there a down side or risk here? If so, what is it?
Thanks to Joe Cadillic for this link.