Westchester Hospital Installs First Newborn Safety Digital Scanning System in NY State

Northern Westchester Hospital has become the first hospital in New York State to install a state-of-the-art infant safety system developed by CertaScan Technologies.

By Brigitt Earley October 4, 2018

As a new parent, you'll want to make sure that you have every aspect of your baby's safety taken care of. Whether that be finding the right car seat, babyproofing your home for the first time, or even learning how to speak to your baby a certain way to facilitate speech development. So why not take your safety measures one step further and ensure that their easily identifiable in case of an abduction? That's why one Westchester Hospital is upping the ante with the latest in baby identification technology.

There’s nothing more precious than new life, and Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, NY is taking new strides towards newborn safety. The Westchester hospital has become the first hospital in New York State to install a state-of-the-art infant safety system developed by CertaScan Technologies.

The proprietary system allows the hospital to capture high-resolution digital footprints of newborns instead of traditional inked prints. These digital footprints are then stored in the newborn’s electronic medical record (EMR).

The Newborn Safety System offers a solution to providing a permanent record for infants, since it can be difficult to take a baby’s fingerprints and baby’s irises are not fully formed at birth. Like fingerprints, a baby’s footprint pattern can be quickly scanned for identification in the event of an emergency.

According to Tracey Thompson Lander, RN, Director of Maternal Child Health Services at NWH, the scans are taken of every infant, and are free to patients, who also receive a copy as a keepsake. “We are excited to offer this new service to our patients. We reviewed the product with our Mother-Baby Team and thought it would be a great keepsake for parents in addition to an important safety feature. Infant abductions are very rare, but these digital scans are extremely useful if a child is lost or separated from their parents,” she says. “Patients want to know that we have infant safety and security measures in place and this system offers the latest technology to ensure infant identification.”

The system has been praised by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and is recommended to hospitals in the NCMEC’s most recent infant security guidelines.

Officials say the system is entirely safe for use on babies and provides outstanding footprint quality.