Many studies have been made and in all, the results have come back, the public is unconcerned with the way he or she has received medication from a healthcare organization. In a survey conducted in 1999 by the American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists, sixty one percent of the respondents said that when hospitalized they were very concerned with "being given the wrong medicine" and fifty eight percent responded that they were "being given two or more medicines that interact In a negative way" (ASAP Patient Concerns National Survey Research Report, 1999).Healthcare professionals also have had the same concerns. In his or her training they are taught that when humans read or record Information there Is a small but readily real error rate. Many mistakes made by pharmacies are from the misunderstanding of physician's unreadable handwriting. It has always been accepted that the practice of check, and double check would catch errors, which then, would be corrected before administrating any medications.
This practice has been found not to work more and more. BBC Nightly News reported a case of a decimal point being misplaced when writing out an order.This caused a child who was in the hospital to be given a fatal dose of morphine (Fatal Medication Errors, Study: Children Often Getting Wrong Medication In Hospitals (2004). What Is a Brocade? As defined In Implementation Gulled for the Use of Bar Code Technology In Healthcare, a bar code Is a graphic representation of data (alpha, numeric, or both) that is machine-readable.
Bar codes are a way of encoding numbers and letters by using a combination of bars and spaces of varying widths. Both the lines and spaces are read.They may be thought of as another way of writing, because they replace key data entry as a method of gathering data. In business, correct usage of bar codes can reduce inefficiencies and improve a company's productivity, thereby growing its OTTOMH line (Council..
2003). Advantages Inventory Control Maintaining Inventory can be a difficult procedure. Healthcare organizations can have large Inventory that Include office, and cleaning supplies, linens, pharmaceutical, and much more. Keeping these Inventory at the levels needed for the organization to run properly can be daunting.When Inventory Is taken by physical sight, or by check lists, it can cause inventory to be ordered that is not When Barbados are used in tracking inventory, it will show the up to date information of what is on hand. It will show what is in stock, what needs to be ordered, how much needs to ordered, which is an important tool in maintaining inventory levels.
This will improve ordering unwanted or unneeded medical supplies. Administering Medication Bar coding increases the accurateness, and reduces errors made by entering physicians' orders manually.Bar codes are easy to use with the proper software. It validates that the proper medication is being administered to the proper patient by checking medical orders, the patient and treatment information. As stated in Implementation Guide for the Use of Bar Code Technology in Healthcare, Bar coding the employee identification badge provides positive identification of the caregiver and ensures secure access to systems based on user privileges. Utilizing bar code scanning for caregivers also accurately captures user information for charting, charging and provides an effective audit trail.
When the caregiver scans the patients bar coded wristband, the caregiver has real-time access to the patient's orders and can view what currently needs to be done for the patient. When the caregiver then scans an item or medication, the scanned bar code is compared with the order profile. If it does not match the caregiver is alerted to the discrepancy, and a potential error is averted (Council. , 2003). Disadvantages Although using Barbados is highly affective, there are times when there are disadvantages in their use. Errors that can occur are on the printed brocade labels.
They may not be printed correctly or it may contain the wrong data. Not all the medications have Barbados, and some over the counter drugs do not match with pharmaceutical databases. More disadvantages can be the bar-coding equipment is too complicated to use; the caregiver may bypass the process and administer the medication without canning. Also, brocade equipment must be reliable and be readily available.
Many healthcare providers have been stated as saying that bar code based processes eventually will be replaced by RIFF processes so we'll wait for that to take hold (Barlow, R. 006). Improvements Barbados are extremely accurate, convenient, and a fast method to enter data. Radio frequency identification (RIFF) tags have been considered as replacements for the Barbados. Unlike bar-code technology, RIFF technology does not require physical use of scanning equipment.
RIFF data can be read through the human body, clothing ND non-metallic materials (Technologies: RIFF, n. D. ). The biggest drawback to using the RIFF technology is the cost of the transponder tags.
The tags cost several dollars each, as opposed to paper labels, which cost 20 cents each.Even though the tags can be re-used over many times the cost still is overwhelming for a company to replace its PUC tags with RIFF tags (Shelley, Cushman, Since President Obama made his speech in 2009, many improvements have been made with medical technology. One such thing is the bar coding system. Bar coding had always been accepted in many other non-medical organizations for years.
But in he healthcare organizations, it was mainly used for inventory control because of the high cost of the bar coding equipment.
