Saturday, April 13, 2019

Bar code medication administration


Bar-code medication administration system

Image result for picture of bar coded medication administration
Bar code medication administration system was design to help alleviate those adverse medication errors it involves the use of several technologies into the workflow. Its design enables nursing staff to ensure that the correct medication is administered at the correct dose at the correct time to the correct patient (Poon et al., 2010)

The bar code medication system will change the way in which nurses carry out their physician order no more will nurses have to be able to figure out what’s written in terms of dosage or name (Poon et al., 2010). With the bar-code medication system medication orders appear on the patient’s electronic record once the pharmacist has approved them, this will be done through by scanning the bar codes on the patient’s wristband and on the medication before it is administered (Poon, p.1699). With the manual method nurses are the ones to do the necessary documentation on the time dosage and route of administration however once there is a correspondence with the pharmacist approval on the time, dosage and route the administration will be documented automatically (Poon, p. 1699) Also unlike the manual way if there is an error for example the medication is overdue the nurse will receive an electronic alert where with the manual method no one really alerted the nurse.

Potential problems area and solution that can be solve with the bar code medication system


  •     Errors during the medication ordering stage, however this can be solved by using strategies such as bar-code technology to act as an additional safety net in medication administration this technology should be able to say if the patient is getting the correct does or if they had it already (Poon et al., 2010 p. 1702).
  •     Errors during the administration stage  this can also be solved by the integration of the order entry, pharmacy, and medication-administration systems which ensures that nurses administer medications only after pharmacists have clinically reviewed the medication orders allowing patients to benefit more fully from pharmacists' clinical knowledge Poon et al., 2010 p. 1702).
  •     Errors during medication transcription this can happen due to nurses not being able to properly identify the prescription however with the bar code system the chance of transcribing the wrong medication and dosage is minimal  thus ensuring patients safety Poon et al., 2010 p. 1702).


Reference
Poon. E.G., Keohane. C. A., Yoon. C. S., Ditmore. M., Bane. A., Levtzion-Korach. O., … Gandhi. T. K, (2010). Effect of bar-code technology on the safety of medication administration. Retrieved on the 13th March, 2019 by https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa0907115


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