Hospitals Using Bar Codes To Improve Safety
More and more hospital patients are being treated like loaves of bread.
Pharmacists and technicians at the Lakeland Regional Medical Center use the Talyst barcoding system that assists pharmacists in accurately preparing and packaging drugs for patients.
That’s a good thing, nurses and hospital administrators say.
Like the scanner that reads bar codes in the grocery, Polk County hospitals are bringing bar-code technology to the bedside, all in the name of patient safety.
Medication errors harm at least 1.5 million people every year, with a conservative estimate of 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries in hospitals each year, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies reported in 2006.
