I Stat scanning issues

Is the iSTAT in the OR resting in a recharger, or is it just sitting on the counter? I have noticed that the iSTAT starts to have troubles scanning when the battery is getting low, before the low battery icon starts to flash. 

I do notice when batteries are getting low (disposables) scanning make not work.  We have had iSTAT's in the OR's, radiology and cath lab since  1996 and have never had any issues in those areas. Do they mean they cannot get to the barcode to scan or the scanner does not work? We had this communication issue once about scanning, and it turned out the scanner worked fine, they just could not get to the patient's armband while they were on the table.  Two different meanings to not being able to scan !

Sometime back we had issues with i-STAT not scanning in OR. It was puzzling because it was only in OR rooms, and as soon as you stepped out of the room scanning was not an issue. This was mostly an issue scanning operator IDs and Cartridges. I tended to think it was something to do with type of lighting in OR.
However, since then we've moved from that building into a new hospital building. I have not heard issues since. 

We recently had an issue in our NICU. Our nursery went to a new lighting system that simulates circadian rhythm. It interfered with the iSTAT LED scanner. We had our operators shade the cartridge barcode from the nursery lights and this has solved the issue.

We had issues when they started replacing the fluorescent light bulbs with LED light bulbs to save energy.  The LED bulbs are intermittent, so it interferes with the barcode scanner on the iSTAT (and other barcode scanners).  We have them try to scan under a shadow.

I have a follow-up question about this. When 'you' say problems with scanning, does that mean it won't scan at all or it scans incorrectly and changes/inserts characters?

They stated that it wasn't scanning at all, no errors or incorrect reading. So, the Abbott support tech advised me to take another i-stat with a newer serial number into the OR rooms and try to scan them (OR's SNs started with 39, so I took ICUs that started with 40) I didn't seem to have an issue while scanning until I was under one certain light and all 3 devices did not want to scan under this light. There was no resolution to this issue, I think the OR just wanted to be heard, as I think they can take two steps away from the light to scan the patient. I did give them a list of operator IDs so that they would be able to manually enter their ID if needed, and activated the Patient ID Recall function, so they did not have to scan between testing on the same patient. I believe they also don't like the small sample area you have to get the sample into. The Hemochron seems as though it would be an easier device to use as far as that goes. I may look into that in the future.