Bcma Intervention

The pharmacy, nursing, and informatics department were required to be involved in implementing the bar-code-assisted medication administration (BCMA) patient safety initiative. The involvement of the informatics department was required for planning and coordination of the electronic medication administration record and the scanning devices. The nurses were administering the medications so they were required to undergo training on BCMA methods and the importance of BCMA implementation. Pharmacists were needed to assist nurses in case if a scanning error occurred. Pharmacy, nursing, and informatics staff members were responsible for evaluation of the BCMA system upon implementation.

Bedside Medication Administration (BMV). A BMV system would be helpful in addressing the issue of drug administration. The system would work with a patient’s electronic medical record (EMR) to compile data on the patient’s medications. The program could alert the nurse the proper dosage and different vitals and laboratory results needed before administration. This system would be worth the financial investment because there has been occurrences of improper dosage and negligence of nighttime medication. Drugs are a crucial

In the Electronic Medication Administration Record (EMAR) D.B informed me that they would scan the patients’ identification band and then the medication. A medication match is made to deliver the medication safely to the patients. Additionally, there are timeframe lockouts in place, and the high alert medications require a dual sign out. Customarily, like most institutions the Narcotics remaining volume is handoff with the oncoming and off going nurse. Their bedside safety checks are done at the change of shift and office visits flows into the patients’ electronic health record as well as medication review. According to D.B, “Blood sugar and insulin are scanned and the nurses have to attest to the ELearning’s which at times they felt are

* Reduction of medication errors- Barcode medication administration safeguards against wrong pt/wrong med/wrong dose errors and alerts to potential medication interactions (Goth, 2006).

A Research study completed by Bonkowski et al. in 2013 showed that Barcode-Assisted Medication Administration (BCMA) can help to reduce medication administration errors by 40-70% in hospitalized patients. BCMA was implemented at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center- Hillcrest (BSWMC-H) in September of 2014. Since then BCMA scan rates have been well below the expectations for the Emergency Department (ED). In July 2015, BCMA rates for the department were 77% resulting in a medication error rate of 0.74 per 1000 patient days.

The objective of this study is to investigate safeguards and decision-making support tools embedded in patient care technologies and information systems to support a safe practice environment for both patients and healthcare workers. This work will additionally discuss the principles of data integrity, professional ethics, and legal requirements related to data security, regulatory requirements, confidentiality, and client's right to privacy. The scenario in this study involves emergency workers in Marin County, California are using the technology that involves QR codes or 'Quick Response' Codes to save lives in emergencies. Lifesquare has collaborated with two emergency response agencies in the county to conduct a year-long pilot program. Lifesquare wants residents to input personal information about their medications into its website and then place corresponding QR code stickers where emergency workers can find and scan them in the case of an emergency. These stickers are available from a local pharmacy. Another company, ID Amber has a Security Code printed on a tag, which can be scanned readily. Another company ScanMedQR.com, manufacturer of silicon bracelets, cards for wallets and necklaces that have QR codes on them that provide quick access to health records. The assumption in this study is that elderly neighbors have heard of pilot study yet have worries about the new technology. They have requested additional information about the technology

While the use of barcode technology has had many applications in hospitals for quite some time it has only recently been used to address patient safety. Mitch Work (2005) views bar code technology as a particularly promising advance in the effort to reduce medical errors. Barcodes provide a valuable verification of medication administration by assuring that the "five rights" are confirmed: right patient, right medication, right dose, right time, and right route of administration. The use of barcode technology at the patient's bedside has shown notable gains in reducing medication administration errors, which may account for as many as 7,000 deaths per year in U.S. hospitals.

Encourage the use of computer-generated or electronic medication administration records. Plan for the implementation of computerized prescriber order entry systems. Consider the use of machine-readable code (i.e., bar coding) in the medication administration process. Use computerized drug profiling in the pharmacy. Be a demanding customer of pharmacy system software; encourage vendors to incorporate and assist in implementing an adequate standardized set of checks into computerized hospital pharmacy systems (e.g., screening for duplicate drug therapies, patient allergies, potential drug interactions, drug/lab interactions, dose ranges, etc.)”. (Association,

Barcode verification, protocol dosages, ScanEvent tracking, remote dose inspection and approval, automated label sorting and routing are all features that help organization to the pharmacy. Something I found very interesting is that this allows automated documentation of clinical drugs. This is important to clinical studies because it enables an easy access to how much drug is used and the effects of each

Improved patient safety is the most essential advantage of the BCMA system. “On average a hospital patient is subjected to at least one medication error per day (IOM, 2006)”(Foote). BCMA significantly reduces medication errors that cause a compromise in patient safety. The BCMA verifies the five rights of medication administration before a patient receives a medication by the software alerting the nurse if there is a contraindication between the medicine scanned and the patient’s orders. A pilot study conducted at a 300-bed community hospital found that the BCMA system reduced medication errors by 80% (Foote). Fowler et al states that “decrease in errors related to the wrong patient was a direct result of the bar code system (Fowler).”

Medication errors are among the most significant cause of patient injury in all types of medical errors (Johnson, Carlson, Tucker, & Willette, n.d). In the nursing profession, medication administration errors occur 34% of the time, second only to physician ordering errors (Gooder, 2011). The introduction of information technology, such as the Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA), offers new opportunities for reducing medication administration errors. BCMA was developed by the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in 1998 to help improve the documentation of medication administration, decrease medication errors and provide

Bar coding has been introduced into many hospitals in the last several years. Using bar codes on patients ID bracelets and labels for specimens has been the normal practice for Saint Francis Hospital for some time. However, the labels aren’t used as well as they should be to prevent errors in patient care. According to Wickham, Miedema, Gamerdinger, and DeGooyer (2006), implementing the use of bar codes for patient identification will prevent

One study reported nurses' compliance rates of 90% (Paoletti et al., 2007), but the other study found that 20% of the drugs were administered without scanning the barcode to ensure right medication (Poon et al., 2010). Helmon et al (2009) reported an increased in compliance rate in checking patients' identities by scanning patients' wristbands in medical-surgical wards, but no difference in the ICUs. Possible reasons for non-compliance in ICUs could be due to high nurse-patient ratio, and that the nurses were often assigned to the same patients (Helmons et al., 2009). Non-compliance in barcode scanning and workarounds could possibly affect the medication error rates. Therefore, it is difficult to interpret the effect of BCMA on medication administration errors due to differences in study designs, study settings and outcome measurement. Further research is required to include more patient care units, and to examine the effect of nursing activities on the impact of BCMA and medication

One of the most important steps in caring for hospitalized patients is medication administration. Patients come into the hospital to be treated so they will feel better, it does not matter what the physician does if the medications are not given to the patient they will not get better. According to McGonigle and Mastrian, the steps of administering medication have not changed in many years, they are “assessment of need, ordering, dispensing, administration, and evaluation” (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2012, p. 386). The purpose of this paper is explain the medication administration process that is used in my facility, to determine the technology used is effective.

Nursing in today?s society involves more than technical skills, critical thinking, and compassion. It also is changing to add the ability to not only understand but be able to utilize technology to impact a patient?s health. There are many technological changes employed in healthcare practices, however, I have chosen to address bar-code medication administration or BCMA. According to an article in the Journal of Patient Safety, ?bar-code medication administration has been shown to be effective in reducing patient medical errors, yet is still only utilized in 5% of the country?s health care facilities? (Sands, Slebodnik, & Young, 2010). Medication errors are common in hospitals and often lead not only to patient harm, but also lengthy hospital stays and law suits. ?One study identified 6.5 adverse events related to medication use per 100 inpatient admissions, more than one fourth of these events were due to errors and were therefore preventable? (Bane, et. al., 2010).