Barcodes help save lives at UPMC

New technology implemented by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has enabled patients… New technology implemented by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has enabled patients to receive the right medications easier.

After a report from the Institute of Medicine in 1999 stated that 7,000 Americans die each year from medication-related errors, UPMC jumped on board with other institutions to prevent these mistakes.

Dr. Daniel Martich, vice president of eRecord at UPMC, said that the Center’s implementation of Positive Patient Identification, a new barcode system, has had positive effects so far.

“[Patients] like the fact we’re being proactive about decreasing those errors,” he said.

Martich explained that UPMC’s barcode system helps the nurses who administer medications – which usually include everything except intravenous medications – to give or apply the right dosage to the right patient.

This, he said, helps UPMC ensure that they satisfy the five rights of medication delivery: the right patient getting the right medication and the right dose at the right time by the right route – orally or anally, for instance.

New technology, such as the Positive Patient Identification system, has prevented nurses from dispensing the wrong drugs to their patients. By applying a barcode to a patient’s wristband, medical centers can now electronically keep track of prescriptions.

“Every patient has their distinct barcode. Every nurse has their barcode,” Martich said. “We put a unique barcode on them.”

In a medical ward of 20 patients who receive 10 pills each, for example, nurses without this technology are more prone to err than nurses with it because “a lot of pills look alike and pills sound alike,” Martich said.

“For the safety of the patient, we put barcodes [on the wristbands],” he added.

When scanners read the patient’s barcode, they transmit information from a database to the screen, permitting the nurses to read and apply the correct medication.

According to the Institute of Safe Medication Practices’ Web site, “Barcodes provide a highly efficient way to capture data, both more rapidly and far more accurately than keyboard entry.”

UPMC uses two types of barcode scanners, according to a University press release. A wireless device provides nurses the ease of mobility. The bedside scanner, on the other hand, helps in verifying medication information.

“[The scanners] tells you, ‘Yup, you’re doing it right so far,’ or ‘It’s the wrong patient or medication,'” Martich said, adding that it will alert nurses if there are allergic complications between the drug and the patient.