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 Medication errors are a serious public health
 Bar Code – a symbol, often containing a
series of lines and spaces of varying widths
that contains data that is read by a scanning
device and decoded through a computer.
 BPOC – a process in which the patient and
various patient therapies are documented
with a barcode scanner at the point of
administration
 Code 39
◦ symbology that is widely used in industrial bar code
applications. It is discrete, self-checking, variable
length symbology that can be printed readily by a
variety of technologies. Every character has five
bars and four spaces; three of the elements in any
given character are wide, and six are narrow. Every
symbol starts and ends with a unique start/stop
character.
threat. According to a landmark 1999
Institute of Medicine report, between 44,000
and 98,000 Americans die annually due to
medical mistakes.
 As part of its ongoing efforts to improve
patient safety, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) ruled on April 4, 2004,
to make barcodes mandatory on the labels of
thousands of human medications and
biological products by the year 2006.
 UPC
◦ a 12 digit code: the first six digits represent the
number system character, and the manufacturer of
the labeled item, the next five digits are a unique
product identifier and the 12th digit is a check
character, based on the previous 11 digits of data
 Code 39
◦ Usually used in healthcare systems
◦ Requires an asterisk at the beginning and end
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 Code 128  Code 128

◦ gives you the ability to encode all 128 ASCII ◦ Used for smaller medication packages
characters, when encoding numbers only, it can
actually encode them more densely than other
barcodes

 GS1Databar
 GS1-128 (UCCEAN 128)
◦ It is a small, compact barcode capable of identifying
◦ Manufacturers and for shipping small items and encodes more information than the
UPC retail barcode
◦

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 Centralized Method
 Decentralized Method
 Hybrid method

 It ensures adherence to the “5 Rights” of

is a point-of-care software solution that medication administration (Right Patient,
addresses the serious issue of inpatient Right Route, Right Dose, Right Time, Right
medication errors by electronically validating Medication). and visually alerts staff when the
and documenting medications for inpatients. proper parameters are not met.

 Monthly record of dispensed medications

for each specific patient
 List of medications with administration
times
 Medication dispensing nursing/ facility staff
initials/ signatures
 May include list of prn medications Order Pharmacist
Final scan
Fulfillment & Review &
 Tracks missed doses and changes in Verification Verification
medications

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A. Patient name
B. Medication name
and strengths
C. Time of
administration
D. Bar code for
bedside scanning

 Bar codes mismatch with drug, dose and

patient at times
 Bar code sometimes function erroneously
 Unable to scan bar codes properly at times
 Unreadable bar codes
 Time consuming