Veterans Health Administration
Appropriate medication administration requires a strong system of checks and balances to standardize delivery – from the time a doctor writes a prescription to the moment the drug is given to a patient. To systematically eliminate medication errors, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) partnered with EDS to develop the Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) system. This real-time point-of-care system allows physicians to enter medication orders, physicians to fill prescriptions, and nurses to deliver medications through handheld barcode devices that improve both the speed and accuracy of medication delivery. In preliminary testing, the system helped reduce medication errors by 70 percent. Now that the system has been implemented at all VHA facilities across the United States, the agency expects that number to drop even further.
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