electronic med passes

interleukin · Sep 9, 2008

We recently instituted the system. aside from the many many glitches and frustrations, in essence, it tends to make sharp nurses a little less careful, but forces the harried, out of control nurses to pay better attention to what they're doing.

There's s a legit study that concluded that when the bar-code system doesn't work the nurses do work-arounds which making it more dangerous than if there was no bar code at all.

Just another brick in the "let's mircro-manage the practice of nursing" wall of shame.

So, if you're a crack nurse, anyway, this is just a hassle and another system to break down and prevent you from giving smooth care. If you're new, it's good for you.

Do you agree?

blinks14 · Sep 9, 2008

I work in a facility that has bar coding and I think it's awesome. Of course we do not have a lock on out on meds that don't get given at the exact time because we hold meds for tests and such. So if a patient has 0800 meds and left at 0745 for a test and were NPO then I can just wait til they get back. Also our system has lots of built in checks, we do have a full-time pharmacy and I think it makes passing meds for a new nurse a little bit less confusing. We're all human and we all make mistakes but the barcoding sometimes makes you look a little harder, sometimes you see what you want to see and not what it actually is, if you get an error it forces you to stop and look at what you're doing. I worked at another facility (not as a nurse) where paper MARs were used and the nurses were constantly missing meds because that particular system was too cumbersome the way it was set up.

locolorenzo22, BSN, RN · Sep 9, 2008

I don't think the lock-out system is a good one...mainly because yes we're supposed to give within the window..but it's nursing...stuff happens!

I find that it makes me more careful, and I'm always able to see right away what prns are and what's due when....there needs to be some universal med pass times for the system to always give regular meds...unless the med is a one time order...

Perhaps explaining that the lock-out deal doesn't work would help...we've had it over a year...at first it was a pain in the butt...now though I don't know how we ever worked without it!

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Sep 9, 2008

We recently instituted the system. aside from the many many glitches and frustrations,
Just another brick in the "let's mircro-manage the practice of nursing" wall of shame.
So, if you're a crack nurse, anyway, this is just a hassle and another system to break down and prevent you from giving smooth care. If you're new, it's good for you.
Do you agree?

Oh, I so agree.

As a traveler, the places with barcoding...were the ones that had the poorest ratios and had previously had high rates of errors.

Do you think that those ratios maybe had something to do with the error rate?

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I am sooo tired of people trying to fix nursing problems, with electronic gadgets, and technology instead of adequate staffing.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Sep 9, 2008

I have only worked with BCMA as a new grad. It does have challenges but the greater challenge IMO is updating Pyxis to reflect provider orders.

acesdaughter2 · Apr 2, 2012

we have started the barcode admin too. and we have had all sorts of glitches. It took me, a seasoned nurse, 1 hour to pass meds to 3 pts with minimal interuptions. Crazy. so frustrating. By the 3rd day of use, i was more proficient, but it is not friendly. I suppose it doesn't matter tho. all hospitals in the USA will have to have it in place by 2014. The medical record is to be all electronic.