Hospital to use barcodes to confirm medications

Whitman Hospital is firing up to use a barcode verification system in which medications will be scanned and then matched to a barcode on a patient’s wristband.

All eighteen new scanners, compatible with the hospital’s computers, will be up and running Feb. 9 for the 25 in-patient rooms in the hospital.

The scanner is very similar to the kind used in grocery stores.

The new system is a hospital-wide effort to accurately match patients to their medication, said Denise Fowler, chief clinical officer for the hospital.

“It’s that final defense in making sure we don’t give the patient the wrong medication at the bedside,” Fowler explained.

With the new system, a nurse takes the scanner, beeps in the barcode off the proper medication for the patient, then beeps in a barcode on the patient’s wristband. The scanner is attached to a computer which will provide a response on whether the two codes do or do not match.

“The computer system actually compares the patient barcode to the medication barcode and says those are the medications that are okay to give at this time,” Fowler said.

Pullman Regional Hospital has had the same barcode system since October of 2008. Gritman Medical Center does not use this system.

Fowler said this type of barcode system is a nationally-growing trend, as it has helped many hospitals decrease mistakes made administering medication.

Whitman Hospital has adopted the system as part of a larger strategic plan they came up with two years ago to improve patient records. Putting patient’s medical records in electronic form came under focus at that time.