Colloquia Archive
Barcode Medication Administration Technology in Pediatric Hospitals
November 9, 2007
Host: Josette Jones
AbstractEvidence suggests that
- medication errors account for nearly 20% of all medical errors,
- the administration phase of the medication use system accounts for about 35% of preventable adverse drug events (ADEs), and
- only 2% of potential ADEs are intercepted at the administration phase.
Because administration errors are so prevalent and are unlikely to be caught, much attention has been paid to creating safer administration systems. One such system is the barcode medication administration (BCMA) system. However, many questions still remain about the safety value of this technology. Data will be presented from a multi-hospital study of the impact of BCMA systems in pediatric hospitals.
BiographyBen-Tzion Karsh, PhD, is Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research, which has been funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, United Kingdom Department of Health, and the US National Library of Medicine, focuses on using human factors engineering to improve patient and healthcare employee safety. He’s authored over 70 journal articles, conference papers and book chapters. He is a past national Chair of the Health Care Technical Group of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, serves on grant review panels related to patient safety for AHRQ and the Veteran’s Health Administration and is a peer-reviewer for journals including the British Medical Journal, Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety, Quality and Safety in Healthcare, Annals of Emergency Medicine, Behaviour and Information Technology, Applied Ergonomics and Human Factors.
