The issues of patient safety and medication errors have been getting emphasized worldwide in the 21th century.The problems of patient safety and adverse drug events have also been paid attention since the incident of medical error caused a baby girl died in Taiwan. Taiwan Joint Commission on Hospital
Accreditation (2003) shown that about 50% of healthcare professionals have dealt with medical events.
Adverse drug events were the highest rate of medical incidents (23%) from the study, hospital-acquired infection were about 12%, and post-operation complications and invasive treatments or tests were the third high ranking of medical events. Moreover, the top five most common medical adverse events include oral medication errors, nosocomial infections, post-operation complications, patient falls, and injections errors. The purpose of this study is going to investigate the efficiency of Information Technology, the system of automatic identification, the use of mobile laptops, and barcode readers in reducing medical adverse errors and increasing patient safety. Besides, the study is also going to exam whether these computerized medical systems could decrease the rate of adverse drug errors, save time for medication checks, advance the results of tracing the reasons of medical errors, and assist nursing staffs with
ensuring the five patient rights at the bedside that include right medication, right patient, right dose, right route of administration and right time. The research used cross-sectional correlation study method and operates quasi-experimental design for the study in a medical center in the middle Taiwan. All data were collected, recorded and analyzed by SPSS software. There were some suggestions that high technology should be considered for using in computerized medical system that in order to promote patient safety in appropriate medication intake, effectively prevent medical negligence and provide higher quality of health care to patients.
The study found that nurses who have ICU experiences or longer seniority (11-15 years vs. 16 years) can reach the level of the new medication administration system. Regardless of whether nurses had
experience of ICU, their education level, ages and work hours, they can also reach the level of medication safety education program.Bar code is an effective method to reduce the incidences of medication errors that can be used in confirming medication dosage, patient identification, and checking each procedure of medication administrations. BPOC will be a new mainstream, which it may be expected to develop a safer environment and higher quality medical services to patients. However, it is not the only way to prevent the incidences of medication errors, nurses and healthcare professionals are still playing the most important role to be the last defense of keeping the basis of patients? safety.IOM estimated annual drug-related morbidity and mortality rate of about 77 million U.S. dollars spent, if the computer bar code technology can be used for the next 20 years, will be able to block the wrong half of the drug, it will save 93 million U.S. dollars, the proposed future pharmaceutical products And the expiration date design to computer bar code, commissioned by the pharmaceutical companies to package drugs in the flat type.
