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FDA NEWS: Mistakes
made by healthcare professionals carry much greater consequences than those
made in other industries. The Institute of medicine recently released
a report, "To Err is Human", at
http://www.iom.edu/includes/dbfile.asp?id=4117 states that, "thousands
of deaths and millions of hospitalizations occur because of medical errors."
The FDA mandated that all blood and medications have a barcoded label attached in order to cross-check to make sure the right
patient gets the right medicine in the right dosage at the right time, see
http://www.fda.gov/cber/rules/barcodelabel.htm/
There are literally hundreds of sound-alike
and look-alike drug name sets. If each drug has a standard unique
barcode, the label can be scanned at the point of delivery, it will
virtually eliminate the confusion and resultant errors. If the
healthcare provider's ID is scanned at the same time, it further ensures
that the right patient gets the right medication in the right dose at the
right time. An audit trail can also be printed to record historical
data.
Barcoding medications using established standardized barcodes is the single most
affordable and effective tool to improve patient safety! Barcoding improves
accuracy, efficiency, quality, and speed. In all cases, charges can be more
accurately captured due to improved data capture method. |
