I was rummaging through my travel bag and found some items that I collected during the ASHP Summer Meeting back in June. Most of the information had to do with IV room systems, tablet identification, and so on. But there was one item that caught my eye that didn’t fit with the rest: color labels.
I’ve written about the use of color on pharmacy labels before. It has its place, but in my opinion the major barriers have been cost and label quality. That’s why I was so interested when I saw the booth from Quick Label Systems at the ASHP Summer Meeting. The labels they had on display were spectacular. It’s difficult to see in my photo, but the image quality and label stock are top notch. The labels are tough –  really tough – resistant to water, and don’t smear. Very nice.
The quality of the label and print gives users the ability to place a crazy array of information on the label, including the ability to embed audio or links to video using bar code technology. It’s pretty cool.
The company isn’t a pharmacy solution in the traditional sense, but do provide OEM services for other companies. In other words, if you have a need for color labels Quick Label Systems will build color label printers with your name on them.
Not every product that leaves the pharmacy needs a color label, but they could certainly be useful in the IV room. Using color to differentiate or highlight something that requires special attention like chemotherapy is always helpful to pharmacy and nursing.
I’ll try to get the rest of my bag’s contents up over the next few days.
Would the pharmacist depend on the color or only use it as an indicator to get started?
E.G. What if you are color blind? This is something we have to worry about in software development. Color use is fine, but you also have to be aware of vision impaired people.
It is important to note that many of the 10% of “color blind” men are still very able see color.
I am very red-green color blind as would determined by the color blind test – which to me are all just a bunch of meaningless dots. I only run into trouble with some of the brown-green hues, which must be where those dumb color blind tests are targeting. I would think a color set could be chosen to avoid these colors. But to all who have asked, I know my red jeep is not green.
I get that all the time. I’m “red – greed deficient” as identified by the U.S. Army. I might have trouble with slight differences in color shading, but I know the difference between red and green; and all other colors for that matter.
Interesting thought. First, true color blindness is rare. Second, individuals with color deficiency can typically have not trouble differentiating one color from another. It’s only slight variations in shading that causes problems. And finally, I would propose that color be used only for differentiation and to highlight items of importance, i.e. to stand out. I’m not a proponent of “red always means bad”, etc.