Dear AHSP Members: We will be submitting comments to the FDA on the Barcode Final Rule. The 2004 rule is open for review at this time. Attached is the notice from the Federal Register. I have attached a word document with 13 specific questions that the...

While Googling bar-code medication-administration (BCMA), one results page included an interesting article: “Barcode medication administration demons…” You bet I clicked on that one. However, because my display window was not opened wide enough,...

Seems my grandkids are hearing the same sound bites from their parents that my kids heard from theirs. Yesterday my always neat-and-tidy daughter Alison interrupted her one-year-old Georgie’s exploration of food bits on the floor with a “Gross....

In the early 1970s, Alan Haberman (then in his early forties) chaired an ad hoc committee that chose the UPC bar code for the grocery industry. For the next decade Alan unrelentingly worked to persuade manufacturers, retailers and the public to accept...

I’ve been thinking about baseball, movies, ambiguous bar codes, and the FDA. On June 26, 1974, New York Yankee All-Star Derek Jeter was born, two-time Academy Award winner Elizabeth Taylor divorced (for the fifth time), and Sharon Buchanan, a young...

by Fran Lowry Louisville, Ky.—The most important factor in implementing a successful bar code medication administration (BCMA) program is ensuring that all players in the process feel that they are accountable to one another. Moreover, that...

I’ve been thinking about pops, mobility, POPs, and opportunity. My pops is 90, and his mobility is waning—though he’s yet to entertain the idea of using a walker. He loves outings to Costco but navigating a shopping cart through the aisles is...

By Susan Carr I’ve developed a soft spot for error—not for the stubbornness and denial that too often accompany error, nor of course for the harm that can result from it. I’ve been charmed recently by people who are comfortable admitting error...

I’ve been thinking about sailboats, tug boats, and the technology needed for safely navigating medication-use waters. Twenty years ago this month, American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy published an article by Gerald E. Meyer, entitled “The use...

April 21, 2011 In the Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Perlin in this issue, Mark Neuenschwander commented that most hospitals have bar coding — in the gift shop! Bedside bar coding for dispensing medication has been demonstrated to reduce hospital...