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Specimen barcodes & scanners

Print tube labels from Labgen, or scan pre-printed stickers with a hardware barcode scanner.

Every sample tube carries a barcode — it's how Labgen and your analyzer agree on which sample belongs to which patient. You can print labels straight from Labgen, or, if your lab stocks ready-made barcode stickers and a handheld scanner, scan those stickers into Labgen and use them instead. Either way, results file themselves into the right report.

How tube barcodes work

When a patient is registered, Labgen creates one barcode per tube — that is, one per sample type on the order (SERUM, EDTA, PLASMA…). All tests drawn from the same tube share its barcode. The code is built from the visit's lab number and the sample type, so LAB-0042-SERUM is the serum tube of visit LAB-0042.

When the analyzer runs a sample, it reports results against the barcode it was given. Labgen looks that code up, finds the visit and the tests drawn from that tube, and drops every value into the right report automatically — see Machine interfacing for the full chain.

Printing labels

  1. 1Open Report Status and find the entry — the barcode button appears while it's at Registration or Sample Coll.
  2. 2Click the barcode button to open Specimen Barcodes. Each tube is listed with its sample type, tube-colour swatch, and code.
  3. 3Click Print on a single tube, or Print All for the whole order, and stick the labels on the collection tubes.

Using pre-printed stickers with a scanner

Many labs skip printing altogether: they buy rolls of ready-made barcode stickers, stick one on each tube at collection, and scan it with a handheld barcode scanner. Labgen supports this directly — the scanned sticker replaces the system-generated barcode for that tube, and the workflow carries on exactly as before.

  1. 1Stick a fresh pre-printed barcode sticker on the tube.
  2. 2In Specimen Barcodes, click Scan on that tube's row — a capture field appears, ready for input.
  3. 3Point the scanner at the sticker and pull the trigger. The code appears and applies instantly. (No scanner handy? Type the code and press Apply.)
  4. 4The row now shows the sticker's code — that tube is registered under it from here on.

How the scanner works

Handheld USB barcode scanners act as a keyboard: scanning simply "types" the characters on the sticker followed by Enter. That's why there's nothing to install or configure in Labgen — any common USB scanner that reads your stickers (Code 128, EAN, QR) works out of the box.

Always use a fresh sticker

Each barcode must be unique. If you scan a sticker that's already assigned to another sample, Labgen rejects it and tells you which entry owns it — this protects you from an analyzer result landing in the wrong patient's report because two tubes carried the same code.

What happens after a scan

  • Analyzer matching switches to the sticker. When results arrive tagged with the sticker's code, they match the tube and file into the patient's report — the entry moves through Pending → Authorize as usual.
  • The change is audit-logged. Every replacement records the old code, the new code, who scanned it, and when — visible in the Data logger.
  • Unmatched stays as the safety net. A result whose barcode matches nothing (an unregistered hand-labelled tube, for example) waits in the Unmatched list, where a technician can assign it in two clicks.