CYTOLOGY RESULT ENTRY WITHOUT USING THE KEYBOARD

Many keystrokes are needed to enter routine gynecologic cytology resul ts into rrrany computer systems. Not only is this quite time consuming , but typing errors cannot be avoided and are not always detected befo re the report is sent to the clinician. Because of continuing shortage s of staff time and the desire to avoid transcription errors, we began using $400 bar code wands to enter cytology results and billing infor mation. No changes in our laboratory information system software or ta bles were necessary. Accession number labels are preprinted on a stand -alone printer. Bar code sheets, containing common keystroke sequences , are printed using a standard Macintosh computer and Laserwriter prin ter. Scanning the bar codes exactly emulates those keystrokes typed on the keyboard. We have entered the results of > 99% of our gynecologic cytology cases in the past two years without touching the keyboard.