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Bar-code system can help prevent medication errors

Nurse Leader Weekly, October 9, 2006

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The Institute of Medicine (IOM), a nonprofit organization that focuses on biomedical science, medicine, and health, recently released the following eye-catching statistics to the healthcare community:

• Medication errors harm at least 1.5 million people per year
• Hospitals spend about $3.5 billion per year to treat drug-related injuries
• A hospitalized patient is subjected to one medication error per day, on average

So what can be done?

More hospitals and hospital systems, such as Trinity Regional Health, which covers parts of Illinois and Iowa, are using technology to help curb this growing problem.

In late May, two Trinity hospitals-Trinity Medical Center West in Rock Island, IL, and Trinity at Terrace Park in Bettendorf, IA-began using a bar-coding system called CareCast to make sure that the correct medication is given to the correct patient at the correct time.

"We're applying an extra layer of patient safety. And I really think it's made a big impact," says Cathy Kearns, RN, clinical informatics specialist for Trinity.

Accounting for everyday mistakes

The plan to switch the hospitals to the bar-coding system has been in place for more than a year, Kearns says. However, the need for such a change has been around much longer.

The bar-coding system consists-at bedside-of a scanner and wireless computer. Medications and patients are each identified by a bar code.

Nurses then complete the following step-by-step process to administer medication:

• The nurse gathers the medicine based on the time of day.
• The patient is activated via scanner in the computer, which brings the individual's information onto the screen.
• The nurse, while remaining alert to the computer screen, scans the medicine to make sure it's the correct kind and dosage.
• The nurse then scans the patient's wristband to make sure that it's a match with the ordered medication. If it isn't, the computer will issue an alert to tell the nurse that something's wrong.
• Finally, with everything matched up, the nurse administers the medicine.

"Once they [complete the process], the computer charts it for them," Kearns says. "The nurses like that."

Editor's note: This excerpt was adapted from The Staff Educator, September 2006, HCPro, Inc.

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