Barcode Technology for Positive Patient Identification Prior to Transfusion
Barcode Technology for Positive Patient Identification Prior to Transfusion
Renewed initiative engages nurses and achieves 100% compliance.
In today’s increasingly complex, highly demanding clinical environment, introducing a new technology is challenging under the best of circumstances. What if, right when roll-out is going well, an unrelated connectivity interruption leads nurses to conclude “this doesn’t work”? You need to get your initiative back on track—especially when it relates to improving the safety of a critically important patient-care process.
Forever Changed: Shared Learning in Patient Safety
In an effort to promote patient safety, Baptist Health South Florida (Baptist Health) has instituted the Shared Learning process, the purpose of which is to educate and communicate with all stakeholders—our clinical staff, the Quality and Patient Safety Steering Council, and board members—in a proactive way.
Design for Reliability: Barcoded Medication Administration
Design for Reliability: Barcoded Medication Administration
There is now widespread agreement that hospital patients can be harmed by medication errors. Providing patients with medications in the acute care setting is a complex process that requires coordination in the flow of information when individuals order, transcribe, verify, dispense, and administer a medication. Early studies quantified the extent to which errors occur at each of these stages; one of the most troubling steps in the process is the administration phase, when 26 to 38% of the errors occur (Bates et al., 1995; Leape et al., 1995).