Bar code system helps Salinas Valley Memorial prevent drug errors
February 25, 2011 | In: Healthcare Barcoding Influencers
Hundreds of thousands of hospital patients in the U.S. experience adverse reactions to preventable medication errors every year, but at the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, a new high-tech pharmacy aims to significantly reduce errors.
The pharmacy, which opened in October, uses bar codes to track drugs at every step of the medication process. The system issues an alert if a medicine, dosage, or time of day does not match the prescription in a patient’s medical record.
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine found that up to 98,000 Americans die annually in hospitals because of preventable medical mistakes. The report served as a wake-up call. By 2000, the Department of Veterans Affairs had rolled out a system of bar code medication checks in 161 medical centers, and similar systems have been adopted in other hospitals nationwide.
At Salinas Valley Memorial, medicine deliveries are scanned when they arrive in bulk at the pharmacy. Individual doses are packaged and bar coded by machine, and stored in an automated carousel. Before administering medicine, hospital personnel are trained to scan the bar code of the medicine and a patient’s wrist band to ensure a proper match.
“No other hospital in Monterey County has a system like this,” said David Perrott, vice president and chief medical officer at Salinas Valley Memorial.
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula plans a transition to a hospital-wide bar code medication management system by the end of 2012, said Brenda Moore, assistant director of communication and marketing.
Read the full article at Monterey County Herald (CA)
Copyright 2011 The Monterey County Herald