Santa Rosa Medical Center Pharmacy uses latest technology to prevent medication errors

With patient care and safety their first priority, it's understandably why pharmacists at Santa Rosa Medical Center have instituted the latest and best technology available in the industry to prevent patient medication dosing errors.

The technology is called SafeScan made by Intellidot and uses a hand-held scanner for scanning barcodes on medications at the time the medication is going to be administered to the patient. It's a procedure that insures the medication and the dosage are the correct ones for the patient being treated.

Although the procedure has been in use at Santa Rosa Medical Center since November of last year, it was not until March 10 of this year that a highly profiled examination of the procedure on the Oprah Winfrey Show by Dr. Oz and the Dennis Quaid family, that the situation was again brought to sensitized public attention. You will remember, of course, that the Quaid twins were given an inaccurate, and almost lethal, dose of a medication in error.

During the show Dr. Oz demonstrated Intellidot's SafeScan scanner.

In a recent interview Santa Rosa Medical Center's Director of Pharmacy Terry Bracey, RPh. explained the procedure in laymen's terms. "The Intellidot scanners operate on a wireless network allowing them to be used in all areas of the hospital," he began.

He went on to explain how this bedside barcode scanning is such an important safety net used to prevent medication errors. "A physician writes an order for a patient to receive a particular medication, and the order is e-mailed  to the pharmacy," he said.

When it reaches the pharmacy the pharmacist reviews the order along with the patient's allergies and other medications currently being taken by the patient. "This is done to confirm there are no contraindications to the patient receiving the medication,"  Bracey said. "If there are none, the pharmacist enters the order into the pharmacy computer for that patient."

The pharmacy computer, of course, interfaces with the Intellidot SafeScan system, and the Acudose system (a computerized storage and distribution system for medications) so that the orders cross the interface and populate the Intellidot SafeScan and Acudose systems, according to the pharmacy director.

"Once the information has crossed the interface, the nurse receives an alert from the hand-held scanner notifying him or her that there is a medication that needs to be administered to the patient.

"The nurse then accesses the order in the computer and verifies that it is correct by comparing it to the original order written by the physician. Once the nurse has completed the verification process, he or she can then proceed with obtaining the medication from the Acudose system and administer the medication to the patient," the pharmacy director said.

That's when another step in the highly sensitive process begins. Bracey explained that after the nurse has obtained the medication from the Acudose system, the nurse then takes the medication to the patient's bedside where the administration process will be completed. "At the bedside the nurse scans the patient identification wrist band, scans the medication, and subsequently administers the medication to the patient if there are no problems discovered," he said.

If anything is wrong during this process, the hand-held scanner will alert the nurse to stop and call the pharmacy in order to determine what is wrong before proceeding any further, according to the pharmacist. "This process prevents patients from receiving a medication in error such as a medication intended for another patient, wrong medication, wrong dose, wrong route, or the wrong time," the pharmacy director said.

"Additionally the SafeScan system prompts the nurse for pertinent information when giving certain medications that require additional monitoring which could consequently prevent a nurse from administering a medication if those clinical parameters preclude the patient from being able to receive the medication," he said.

These highly technical procedures and systems are not new at Santa Rosa Medical Center. According to the pharmacy director, the hospital has been implementing some of this advanced technology since October of 2004 to help prevent medication errors. "In October 2004 we implemented Order-Scan, a system that nursing uses to e-mail physician orders to the pharmacy. Order-Scan eliminated the problems associated with reading carbon copies of physician orders and also decreased the time it takes to get the orders to the pharmacy," Bracey explained.

Following the adoption of Order-Scan in 2004, Acudose was also immediately implemented. "Since October of 2004 when we began implementing these automated systems, Santa Rosa Medical Center has realized a 75% reduction in medication errors," Bracey said. "This is a great process improvement that has produced significant improvements in the safety of medication management at Santa Rosa Medical Center and helps protect our patients from unnecessary and potentially harmful medication errors."

Other team members at Santa Rosa Medical Center have championed the systems as well. "Innovative thinking and a commitment to setting a higher standard of patient care have led us to invest in this technology, which further safeguards our patients from medication errors," said Cecilia Wood, RN, MA, Director of Nursing Administration

"The SafeScan was built by nurses and takes into account the way nurses work," according to Ashlee Delezen, RN, Clinical Coordinator at the hospital. "I can use this device with one hand, so my focus is always where it should be, on my patient! I sleep better at night, knowing we have the SafeScan. It may look like a little computerized device to some, but to me, it's a very soft pillow!"

And for the patients at Santa Rosa Medical Center it's safety and security.