Bar-code medication administration: A systems perspective

Abstract

In 1994, inspiration came to a nurse from the Colmery-O’Neil Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Topeka, Kansas. She noticed the bar code that a rental car company used to track vehicles and surmised that similarly applied bar-code scanning technology could enhance patient safety by reducing medication errors through a series of electronic checks and balances that would augment, but not replace, a nurse’s clinical judgment. A prototype system was developed at the Colmery-O’Neil VAMC and later became the model for the award-winning bar-code medication administration (BCMA) system used throughout the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system beginning in 1999. By 2003, throughout the VA health care system, all inpatient care areas were consistently using positive patient identification at the point of care to document activities associated with medication administration through the use of BCMA. VA administers over 600,000 medication doses daily through BCMA. Over 1 billion doses have been administered in the VA health system since 1999 through the automated monitoring system.