Barocde Scanning

We use barcode scanning at my facility. I know it has saved me a med error or two....

our medication system uses barcodes to scan ALL meds. If you give a scheduled med without scanning and chart, you have to document that A)the drug wouldn't scan or there was no barcode. or B) that the patient didn't have a armband or one that wouldn't scan.

it has saved me a time or two.

I've been using the barcode system since 1999. The VA healthcare system was first to incorporate this barcode scanning system. I love it, until computer problems arise. We have the notebooks attached to the med carts and go from pt to pt. I love the fact that information is easily accessible. You can open up the pt chart right along with the med screen and just minimize it. So then you can do notes as you go along if need be. It does take some getting used to like anything else. We print up a master medications administration worksheet for the day with all the patients listed and the times the meds are due. We just highlight our patients as they are all listed by room number and this helps us to easily organize our workday. We also will section off the meds to be given say 9 & 10 am meds can be given together at our facility, so we would in an example give all the 9am only pt meds first and finish up with the comination 9 & 10's last. Hope you find the information helpful.

Just an after thought...We do experince wrist band issues. If they won't scan properly, we have to use other forms of verifying the pt. This will be done in the bar code package on the computer. You also can edit a med in the computer if for some reason you had some meds that all scanned properly, but later on a computer glich showed that a med wasn't scanned even though you know you scanned it initially, you can go back in a edit the time. I love the prn's as there is no question to what time a pt got their prn pain med. I also love after doing the med pass the function of pulling up a missed med report, in case something was overlooked, you will know immediately whether you gave all the meds or not. We can even use this during the med pass incase we want to see how our co-workers are doing on thier assignment, in the chance that we can help them out.