The main objective of the description is to perform a literature search to highlight the significance of barcoding technologies and automated dispensing systems intended for lessening medication errors. Methods: A pubmed search was carried out to identify and retrieve the information from the peer-reviewed journals. Articles other than English
Potential sources have revealed that barcoding technologies and automated dispensing systems were both having an equal priority in the area of patient safety. The areas from where the mistakes arose were identified as quantity, equipment problems, drug names product packaging, and incorrect drug. Similarly, incorrect drugs, wrong patient, incorrect dose, drug allergy, wrong route, incorrect time, and interactions were also found to be significantly associated with medication errors. Human errors were also found to have an important role. The regulations of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were found to be central for the implementation of proper information technology applicable to patient safety. Joint Commissions National Patient Safety Goals had a potential role in the management of barcoding and automated dispensing systems. Conclusion: In conclusion, both the barcoding technology and automated dispensing systems influence the patient safety issues arising from the defects in the infrastructure setups in hospitals.
Nurse care strategy requires skill and management strategies to efficiently improve the health care conditions in different clinical settings. Yet, this process is often impeded by risky situations which tend to complicate the patient life. These are nothing but medical errors that were considered as potential threats. They contribute to 44,000–98,000 deaths annually compared to those that result from deadly accidents, malignancies, and HIV (Sakowski et al., 2005, p.2619-2625). Here, error-related inpatient deaths were considered as the important death contributors. Nearly, 7000 deaths occur annually (Sakowski et al., 2005, p.2619-2625). There is a need for a thorough framework to recognize the incorrect safety guidelines followed in several clinical settings. In the present context, medication errors could be identified as one of the safety issues (Sakowski et al., 2005, p.2619-2625). These conditions may arise from various levels like administration, dispensing, transcribing, and ordering. There are various strategies described to minimize medication errors. These could be robotics, automated drug-dispensing systems, computerized physician order entry (COPE) (Sakowski et al., 2005,p.2619-2625). Technologies that involve the help of computers run the risk of adding medication errors as they were reported to contribute to 20% of relevant errors in hospitals(Sakowski et al., 2005,p.2619-2625). A new technology named Bar-code point-of-care (BPOC) medication administration systems have emerged as a pioneer in this regard. This could guarantee the administration of the right drug through the proper route to the suitable patient. There are various BPOC systems running on similar concept although their outcome differs (Sakowski et al., 2005, p.2619-2625). Bar codes with the encoded information facilitate a prescribed drug to be compared with the drug being administered. In detail, a bar code is assigned to a single drug with labeling (Sakowski et al., 2005, p. 2619-2625).
When the Doctor prescribes a medication, it would be given to the pharmacy either by hand or through fax which is then recorded on a computer. Here, dispensing of the bar code labeled unit dose to the clinician chamber where the clinician administers the drug after checking the bar code with a scanner that reads the bar code (Sakowski et al., 2005, p. 2619-2625). This was described when a study was undertaken to evaluate the hospital-based medication administration information where BPOC systems were equipped to gather data.
There is a need to know the five rights of medication administration. They are the right patient, right drug, right time, right dose, and right route (Meadows, 2002,p.192-194). Bar code system has the potential to ensure these five rights (Meadows, 2002, p.192-194).
For example, certain errors would be caught while using the Bar code system (Meadows, 2002). These may be Wrong drugs, wrong patient, incorrect dose, allergy to the drug, wrong route, incorrect time, and interactions (Meadows, 2002, 192-194). Bar code system also enables to maintain the proper billing system that reflects the drug administration, time, and clinician present. This would eliminate the use of manual documentation (Meadows, 2002). There were certain barriers to implementing the barcoding system.
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