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Technology helps FL hospital protect against medical errors

Healthcare Security Weekly, June 13, 2005

New technology at a Florida hospital is ensuring that patients always receive the correct medications, reports the Lake City (FL) Reporter.

The electronic Medication Administration Record & Bar Coding System is a program in which each nurse at Lake City Medical Center is armed with a wireless laptop computer that provides them with quick and accurate patient information. The program takes HCA Healthcare's Clinical Patient Care Software and makes it available at a patient's bedside.

Patients receive a bar-coded armband upon admission into the hospital. Nurses need only to scan the armband to pull up the patient's medical history, drug history, allergies, prescriptions, and any relevant side effects.

The program also checks orders against the patient's drug history. Nurses scan the medication before administering it. If there is a conflict, the system alerts the nurse.

About 98,000 Americans die each year from preventable medical errors, according to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report.

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