Reduce Medication Errors with Barcode Technology
Posted by Kate Sparks
Did you know medication errors are among some of the most common medical errors? To reduce medication errors, Positive Patient Identification is crucial. Errors can lead to the injury, sickness, and sometimes the death of a patient who was administered the wrong medication. Barcode scanning can address these issues by enabling the automated double and triple checks required to eliminate medication errors — without inserting additional paperwork into everyday processes. For example, a scan of the barcode on patient wristbands, employee badges and the medication closes the loop for patient safety and accountability by providing a three-way match to check the ‘five-rights’ of medication administration in just seconds. The result is cost-effective and in compliance with new regulations.
From an ROI perspective, barcoding has been proven to generate not only clinical benefits but also measurable financial benefits. If each adverse drug event (ADE) adds an additional $8,750 to the cost of a hospital stay (a figure cited by the Institute of Medicine [IOM]), and there are an estimated 400,000 in-hospital preventable ADEs per year in the United States, the annual cost, in 2006 dollars, is $3.5 billion. In addition to the cost-avoidance aspect of patient safety that barcoding provides, barcode data greatly improves the accuracy of charge capture, pharmaceutical inventory management, drug utilization and best practice compliance. Read more from Zebra Technologies' white paper: Patient Safety Applications of Barcode and RFID Technologies.
Want to learn more about barcoding in the hospital? Download a white paper: The 10 Things You Should Consider When Selecting Barcode Technology for Healthcare.
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