Barcode system tracks hospital’s medications: Technology designed to keep Mercy patients safer.

Merced Sun-Star, The (CA)
Copyright 2011 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

February 8, 2011

Bar code system tracks hospital’s medications: Technology designed to keep Mercy patients safer.

YESENIA AMARO yamaro@mercedsun-star.com
Mercy Medical Center has implemented a new system that will help increase patient medication safety.

Brian Elmore, director of the Pharmacy Department at Mercy, said the Bedside Medication Verification system uses bar code technology to enhance the safety of the center’s medication delivery system. “Our patients are safer,” he said. “Not that they weren’t safe before, but there’s an extra level of safety involved in” the system.

The process begins in the Pharmacy Department , where medications are scanned into the inventory using bar codes, Elmore said. The medications are then dispensed to the nursing units, and to patients using the bar code.

Nurses then put the last piece of the puzzle together by scanning the bar code on the patient’s wristband and the medication. A computer that’s placed in each room verifies that the wristband matches the medication. “To make sure it’s actually what the physician had ordered for the patient,” Elmore said.

The Pharmacy Department began to use the system when the new hospital opened, Elmore said. Nurses began to use it at the end of November.

All nurses went through a month-long training process to learn how to use the system. “I think the nurses are very used to it now,” Elmore said. “They are very happy with it.”

He said the system does all the checking for the nurses, and it’s all paperless.

The system warns the nurses when a medication is due, and they are able to check at any computer, Elmore said. Patients can be taking 10 to 15 medications, he added.

Kelsey Riggs , a registered nurse at Mercy, said every nurse is able to pull up their status board on the computer. The board displays the patients each nurse is assigned — as many as five depending on where the nurse is stationed.

Nurses pull up information for the specific patient they are working with, they verify the identify of the patient, and then they go through the scanning process. “You can’t really make any errors at all,” Riggs said.

Riggs said nurses also are able to provide education to patients using the system. She said if a patient is using a certain drug for the first time, the system will detect that and provide the nurse with educational information to share with the patient.

Riggs said she hasn’t experienced any difficulties with the system, but said it might present challenges for those nurses who are not computer savvy.

Overall, she said the system has helped nurses feel more comfortable. “It decreased the chances of making an error,” she said. “We all agree that this is the best thing for patients.”

Elmore said the Bedside Medication Verification system is a major piece of the hospital’s transition into electronic medical records. It was part of the overall plan for the new facility that looked at the potential to improve the safety of patients, he added.

Catholic Healthcare West, owner of Mercy, spent more than $1 million to implement the system, which included buying computers for every room, software and other technology used in the Pharmacy Department to help facilitate the process, Elmore said. “Merced doesn’t know what it has in this building for the long term,” he said. “It’s wonderful for the community, they deserve it.”

Another Catholic Healthcare West hospital in Arizona is using the system.