What to make of the BCMA workarounds study -July 2008 I’ve been thinking about thirty-one, body mass index, automobile restraints, and how hospitals should not do bar coding at the point of care. I dropped by Baskin Robbins the other day....

I’ve been thinking about physicians, bar coding, and WIIFM? Recently, while pondering why the physician community has been seemingly immune to the bar-coding-at-the-point-of-care (BPOC) bug, I had an idea. Maybe it’s because they’ve been dialed...

I’ve been thinking about nurses, horses, guns, and hugs. We all were infuriated when we read about the man last March who walked into a Georgia hospital and shot a nurse he blamed for his mother’s death. How could anyone do such a thing? Then I...

I’ve been thinking about the power of “un” for analyzing, selecting, implementing, and using patient-safety technologies wisely. It all begins with understanding the relative value of addressing one point of risk before another. For example, six...

I’ve been thinking about politics, comics, and bedside scanners. Hospital bar-coding initiatives involve numerous decisions. None are more controversial than what type of data-collection scanners nurses will take to points of care. As intensely...

I'VE BEEN THINKING about the plethora of viable candidates in the 2008 presidential race and the herd of caregiver ID technologies vying for the lead position in our hospitals. I’m writing on the heels of Super Tuesday, considered the homestretch ...

I've been thinking about preachers, camels, and commitments. In response to my November 2007 column, in which I appealed to America’s hospitals to lay off the snooze button, wake up, and get on with bedside bar coding, I received a thoughtful...

Counting Blessings and Learning Lessons I’ve been thinking about twins, overdosing, and snooze buttons. It was posted on the Internet, reported on CNN and written up in the LA Times. The story even popped up on the gossip tabloids at our local ...

I'VE BEEN THINKING about parents, Plymouths, pills, and packaging. My dad’s the Zen master of documentation. A few months ago when he turned in his car keys (at age 85), there in the glove box we found the little spiral notebook in which he had...

I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of utilizing radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology in hospitals. In the middle of the Bible, a poet puts a rhetorical question to God: “Where can I flee from your presence?” A few lines...