Scanning medication barcodes improves accuracy at Lehigh Valley Hospital.
Performance improvement often means doing tasks faster, but it can also involve increasing the accuracy of a health care process and reducing error rates. At Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, PA, the implementation of a wireless barcode scanning system has increased the accuracy of nurses giving medications to patients, even though it has slowed them down a bit.
D016303:Clinical Pharmacy Information Systems; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D006764:Hospitals, Community / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008510:Medication Systems, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010414:Pennsylvania; D017751:Safety Management; D018511:Systems Integration