Hospital puts bar codes up in armbands

HazeK · Jul 16, 2002

so THAT's why we are seeing barcodes on our patient's bracelets!

bet the pharmacy interface is coming soon! Argh!

haze

shannonRN, BSN, RN · Jul 16, 2002

our hospital is supposed to start using armbands with barcodes...i was told the reason was for our new glucometers. they have a scan and we can just scan their bracelet instead of punching in 10 numbers!

it will be interesting to see the follow up report from hospital. karen, i'm sure you will keep us posted!!! :)

Fgr8Out · Jul 16, 2002

Originally posted by HazeK
so THAT's why we are seeing barcodes on our patient's bracelets!

bet the pharmacy interface is coming soon! Argh!

haze

The barcodes we use aren't on the bracelets at this time, but on the Dr's Order sheets. We use the number (along with our own barcode) for the glucometers.

Our Pharmacy will soon be using MAR's that are preprinted per each patient's ordered medications... I'm sure there's a connection here.

DelGR · Jul 17, 2002

The Veteran's Hospitals have been doing Bar Code medicine administration for 2 years now. And, Precision G bar code for glucometer readings; then we dock them to send to the lab where they are automatically entered into the computer charting for the docs to see.

tirramisue · Jul 18, 2002

We have those armbands for the glucometers-I have yet to actually get one to scan. Anyone else have trouble? Any suggestions?

DelGR · Jul 19, 2002

Sometimes it's the barcode printing on the armband that is the problem. We had to have the biomed and our computer people work on the solution. They had to change the printing for the armbands. Sometimes it's the scanner that needs to be recalibrated. They sometimes have a factory issued barcode that came with the scanner to reset it.

adrienurse, LPN · Jul 19, 2002

I really am all for incident prevention by design. I wonder, however, how the patients feel about being treated like a piece of inventory.

KaraLea, LVN · Jul 19, 2002

Originally posted by adrienurse
I really am all for incident prevention by design. I wonder, however, how the patients feel about being treated like a piece of inventory.

I agree, this SOUNDS like a good idea. But, there are always downsides to everything. Hope it works to cut down on errors with minimal dehumanization...

Dr. Kate, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2002

Perhaps the goal is to make the technical things easier so we can work on the real business of nursing.

DelGR · Jul 23, 2002

I know in the VA system it's for patient safety more than anything else. It isn't easier.

Jenny P · Jul 23, 2002

Originally posted by adrienurse
I really am all for incident prevention by design. I wonder, however, how the patients feel about being treated like a piece of inventory.

Our hospital ID badges now have bar codes on them. I imagine that if we have bar codes on the pt. name bands they will feel just like us! :rolleyes:

Seriously, I was doing a glucometer on a pt. last night and misread his hospital ID number while entering it into the gluc machine- I think I punched in a 3 instead of an 8- but didn't catch it til the next gluc an hour later when I realized that all of the last 8 numbers were "right down the center" (2,5,8) of the keys and I knew I hadn't punched them in like that the previous hour. Considering the pt. was on an insulin gtt and I was checking and changing his gtt. rate qhr, I have no idea where that value went nor how to correct it after the fact. Sure, I had typed the result in on the gtt sheet, but had no proof of what the gluc was since it didn't show up on the lab result sheet with all of the rest of them.