Bar Coding for Patient Safety

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Could the deaths of the three (3) premature babies at Methodist Hospital in September 2006 have been avoided?

According to reports: Early Sept. 16, nurses at an Indianapolis hospital went to the drug cabinet in the newborn intensive care unit to get blood thinner for several premature babies.

The nurses didn't realize that a pharmacy technician had mistakenly stocked the cabinet with vials containing a dose 1,000 times stronger than what the babies were supposed to receive. The nurses apparently didn't notice that the label said "heparin," not "hep-lock," and that it was dark blue instead of baby blue.

Answer: Bar coding at the point of care could have warned the caregiver before administering the mis-stocked drug to the patients. The technology of bar coding at the point of care (BPOC) could have helped to save those lives.

How? With a bar code medication administration system, nurses scan the patient wristband to retrieve the patient medication order information. Before administering the drug to the patient, they scan the bar code on the medication* to confirm the right drug, right patient, right dose, right route of administration and right time. The lookup performed by a computer system of this kind is done before administering medications to patients. If the medication scanned by the nurse at bedside does not match the order, the hand held computer warns the nurse NOT TO ADMINISTER THE DRUG. - Marisa Barbieri, panel@Hospitalbarcoding.com.

*Medications must be bar coded to distinguish the different variations of a drug as well as the dosage.

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