NOVA StatStrip Glucometers mis-scanning

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Has anyone had any issues with the NOVA StatStrip glucometers mis-scanning from patient wristbands? We have had this happen multiple times and I am just curious to see if anyone else has had similar issues?

12 Replies

Brandy Kenny

Mon Apr 13, 2026 at 12:29PM

I notice it every once in a while and it almost always is damage on the wristband. We switched wristbands a few years ago and it greatly reduced errors.

Sheree Humphries

Mon Apr 13, 2026 at 12:30PM

Yes, meter version 1.0 we have had issues with the glucose meters scanning incorrectly patient arm bands. What we are finding is that some printers do not print a clean barcode. There is some carryover (smearing) to the next line(s). The lines on the barcode are not crisp and clean as we would wish at some department locations. We have to put a ticket into our IT to clean up the armband printer.
Our testing of meter version 2.0 with the better scanner is showing that it is not having that same issue with misreading those armbands with carryover in printing. We are hoping this helps.
However, our staff are still not doing what they should in selecting downtime override, confirm what you scanned with what the meter is showing. This would help immensely if people would do as asked on this ID confirmation with positive patient ID is not supplied.

Laura Boyd

Mon Apr 13, 2026 at 12:46PM

We are actively working with Nova on this issue. They have released a new FW version (1.4.14.18) that was supposed to address the issue. We have reported issues of it still happening even after the update. Our issue- as reported from end-users is that an armband is scanned but the previous patient information is populating the PPID screen. Is this your experience as well?

Stacey Williams

Mon Apr 13, 2026 at 12:56PM

We have also run into this problem. Our system switched from the plastic armbands to the paper ones and noticed a large increase in mis-scans. We also tried to catch the errors in real time so we could check the armband of the patient. 99% of the armbands were damaged or smudged. When compared to known patients on the units, our mis-scans seemed to be off by one number somewhere in the CSN#. New armbands are on order.

Miranda Cotter

Mon Apr 13, 2026 at 1:12PM

We have been dealing with this since 2021. Ours is not singular to Nova though. It occurs on all our POC devices, it is just that Nova has the highest volume. IOur CSN's are 9 digits long. We see numbers switched, but we also see digits cut off and then 4 random numbers attached making it 12digits. It started happening wihen we switched from Optime printing to Epic printing. We also see an uptick when the print heads wear down. We have worked with Epic, Nova and Zebra (paper) to come to a resolution, but it is still occurring. We are attempting to educate in the moment when it happens. I have attached our "badge buddy" that is handed out to all Nova trainees. Small card they can attach to their badge reel along with our hospital overhead alarms, order of draw tubes, etc.

Badge Buddy_Updated 07162024.pdf

Julie Blasini

Mon Apr 13, 2026 at 5:37PM

This issue has been a huge thorn in my side!!! I agree if people would please check the scan is correct when the meter says it isn't before selecting override a lot of this wouldn't be an issue. But I dream and digress.

Stacey Williams, I have suspected that plastic armbands would alleviate some of the issues. Thank you for confirming that.

Autilia Sisti

Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 7:28AM

I cannot state how relieved I am that this does not happen at my facility. We do have plastic arm bands, and we use a 12 digit encounter number, not the medical record (whose digits vary). By only allowing 12 digits on the glucose devices, no additional or deleted digits are displayed.
The need for Downtime usually happens when the patient has a merged medical record, or if the glucose device is not programmed to the same location as the patient (ex. loaner device in "Lab" location and patient on 12S).

Michael Bishop

Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 8:21AM

My facility has been encountering an issue in which patients admitted from the ED are being "discharged" by our middleware. This creates a problem at bedside when operators scan the patients admission wristband. The CSN account has been discharged and returns "not a valid patient" although the patient is clearly admitted. Efforts are being made to work with our middleware vendor, our IS team and our LIS partners to remedy the problem. I don't think this counts as a mis scan, but I did want to share in case others are having issues with scanning patient admission wristbands and not getting valid patient identifiers.

Side note - in order to correct those partners that were not properly identifying armbands and automatically selecting "Downtime Override" or "New Patient Override" we started documenting occurrence reports. Doing so got the operators' managers involved because occurrence reports require corrective action documentation. When other partners found out that occurrence reports were being written up more operators began following correct identification of patient policy which in turn is how we were able to determine the above issue.

Ashley Albers

Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 10:51AM

I am glad to hear it isn't just us but also sad to see that there is no great fix for this. We use plastic armbands here. So far we have never had any issues, that I am aware of, with it pulling previous patients, but we have had results crossing into the wrong charts and the only way we have been able to catch that is billing reaches out as there is often a date of service discrepancy.

Khanh Nguyen

Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 2:18PM

We’ve seen this happen a few times too, where results ended up in the wrong patient chart. The only way we caught it was when a nurse noticed and reported it. We use plastic armbands, and it seems related to wristband damage or barcode quality. We’ve been reminding staff to verify two patient identifiers, but that step isn’t always consistently followed. We’ve reached out to Nova and are sending a device back for investigation. Curious if anyone has found a more reliable fix.

Laura Boyd

Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 4:56PM

We are meeting with Nova multiple times a week on a resolution. We have developers, tech support and Executive team represented on the calls. Like I posted earlier, they had us test out a new firmware version they thought would address the issue, but that was unsuccessful. What they offered as a workaround that may work- Change your logoff setting in NovaNet Meter setup to Operator logoff mode- Test. They seem to think that this would force logoff of the meter and break the connection to the previous patient. I am an IT analyst (Epic Beaker) not POCC so I cannot speak to how well this has worked onsite. I can tell you that we have not had any further reported incidents. We coupled making changes to logoff with additional education regarding positive patient ID and not sure which one or maybe the combo made a difference.

Karen Jenkins

Wed Apr 15, 2026 at 11:12AM

My observation: We had issues with results being posted on incorrect patient charts and our problem was the orientation of the barcode in relation to the printhead on the armband printer. When the barcode is oriented in the same plane as the print head, any degradation of the print head is going to cause the "bars" on the barcode to be printed either lighter / darker / wider / usually smaller or none at all. This causes the barcode to "read" incorrectly and therefore send the results to an incorrect chart. We fought until we were able to have the barcode oriented perpendicular to the printhead and those errors stopped. We still had others - staff scanning armbands on bulletin boards, etc :)

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NOVA StatStrip Glucometers mis-scanning