Hospitals Look to Innovative Technologies to Address Medication Safety

UnSUMMIT Attendees Confirm that Barcoding Technologies Recognized as Critical Tool in Reducing Medication Errors

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Healthcare experts across the country are encouraging hospitals to adopt bedside barcoding to reduce harmful medication errors according to a survey conducted at The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding Conference held April 30th – May 2nd in Austin, Texas. Barcode verification of medications in hospitals effectively reduces medication errors, which harm an estimated 400,000 patients each year, including one in fifteen pediatric patients. Until now, the debate over which solution best addresses medication error has long favored computerized physician order entry (CPOE) over barcode point-of-care technology (BPOC). This view is shifting. Despite the documented effectiveness of CPOE in peer-reviewed literature, a series of recent high-profile medication errors including the heparin overdose of actor Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins, has drawn patient safety leadership to focus on patient bedsides rather than the physician’s prescription pad.

Over 400 pharmacists, nurses, informaticists, and technology vendors gathered in Austin, Texas for The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding, a conference dedicated solely to bedside barcoding technology. During the two and a half days, more than 40 speakers from 20 hospitals and industry experts reported results from extensive BPOC use, illustrating common hang-ups as well as sharing their means of success.

Robert Wachter, MD, professor and associate chairman of University of California San Francisco’s Department of Medicine and Chief of Medical Staff at UCSF Medical Center, wrote in his blog Wachter’s World that he couldn’t recall a major medication error that would have been prevented by CPOE, “Not that there aren’t any, but it does seem like today’s Oh-My-God-How-Could-This-Happen med errors are now disproportionately administration, not prescribing, mistakes.” As a result, Wachter, the pioneer of hospitalist medicine, is now saying, “based on what I know today, if I was a hospital ready to get into the IT game, I’d go with bar coding first.”

Among them, nurse Julie Thao who in 2006 faced criminal charges for a fatal medication error and Dr. Charles Denham, founder and chairman of the nonprofit medical research organization, Texas Medical Institute of Technology, shared a stirring account of a nursing career lost to a preventable error highlighting the “other victim” of medication error. Manisha Shah, director of patient safety for the world’s largest private operator of health care facilities, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), unveiled the results of three years of BPOC data across 180 hospitals. Anne Bane, RN and Tom Cooley, RPh., MBA of Brigham and Women’s Hospital which has been the epicenter of both CPOE and barcoding research, co-presented the unintended consequences of BPOC so other hospitals might avoid their mistakes. The unSUMMIT speakers demonstrated successful use of barcoding to safeguard large and small hospitals as well as unique care settings such as the operating room and psychiatric care units.

Since The unSUMMIT’s initiation in 2005 when estimated adoption rates lagged in fewer than 10 percent of hospitals, proponents of barcoding have seen numbers double, according to a survey published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacists. A confluence of factors appears to be moving hospitals toward widespread adoption.

The unSUMMIT co-founder, Jamie Kelly suggests that “Although the past rate of BPOC adoption has been slow, the support provided by Dr Wachter, The Quaid Foundation, our expert unSUMMIT speakers and the more than 900 unSUMMIT attendees over the past three years, has the potential to establish barcoding as the standard of care in the coming years.”

About The TerraPharma Project

The TerraPharma Project, LLC (TTP), Bellevue, WA, is fueled by the conviction that barcode point-of-care (BPOC) technology is low-hanging fruit that delivers high returns for patient safety. Committed to promoting the adoption of BPOC in hospitals across the nation, TTP produces The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding and PointofCareForum.com. For more information go to http://www.unsummit.com/terrapharma.html

For more information on the The unSUMMIT, please direct all inquiries to Mark Neuenschwander, cofounder of The TerraPharma Project, LLC at mark@unsummit.com or by phone at 425-644-6797.

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