Southern Ohio Medical Center Achieves Near Perfect Barcode Compliance With Its Medication Administration
Southern Ohio Medical Center (SOMC), located in Portsmouth, Ohio, announced recently it has achieved 96 percent barcode compliance using the MetaCare Enterprise eMAR point of care, barcode medication administration and documentation system provided by Meta, Inc., based in Floral Park, NY.
Recent studies have shown that having full barcode compliance - scanning both the patient's ID barcode and the medication barcode at time of administration - results in fewer than one-tenth of one percent of patients experiencing a medication error that leads to serious consequences. The studies also indicate that most hospitals using point of care barcode technology were only able to obtain about 85 percent compliance. SOMC has been able to achieve 96 percent compliance enterprise-wide, with the pediatric department experiencing almost 100 percent!
"We are able to follow the five rights of Medication Administration and can say that we truly are following the safest way to deliver meds to a patient," explained Valerie DeCamp, Director of Nursing Inpatient Services and Accreditation for SOMC. "The software has the appearance of our old paper model, which makes it easier for the nurses to learn and follow their daily workflow."
"With MetaCare eMAR, our staff has access to barcode technology at the point of care and detailed information about the patient's medication order, from clinical alerts and interactions that may have been encountered by the pharmacist at order entry to notes and alerts entered by other practitioners," explained Rory Phillips, R.Ph., Director of Pharmacy Services for SOMC. "It provides us with a dynamic and flexible documentation tool that updates the patient's medication profile instantaneously when a change is made by either our pharmacy or nursing departments."
"Our barcode compliance and the achievement of secure, paperless nursing administration and pharmacy records within the guidelines of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy demonstrates how well MetaCare eMAR has improved the safety and confidentiality of our patients," remarked Phillips.
The MetaCare Enterprise eMAR utilizes barcode technology to help SOMC eliminate medication errors at the critical point of care. The system efficiently automates the medication documentation process while integrating such tasks as vital sign and I & O documentation. It allows the nurse to easily monitor the specific up-to-the-minute patient indices, including laboratory results, deemed valuable to an individual patient. Meta's eMAR can even alert the nurse when timed events are due, eg. documentation of follow-up pain assessment or removal of a patch. In addition, eMAR allows the nurse to document progress notes, adverse drug reactions and medication incidences, all in one location.
About Southern Ohio Medical Center
Southern Ohio Medical Center (SOMC) is a 222-bed hospital in Portsmouth, Ohio, providing emergency and surgical care, as well as a wide range of other health-care services. SOMC employs 2,200 full- and part-time people, has a medical staff of more than 140 physicians and specialists, and is supported by more than 800 volunteers.
About Meta, Inc.
For more than 20 years, Meta has been designing and developing fully integrated software solutions and hospital information systems to hospitals and other healthcare enterprises to promote and improve patient safety. A leader in patient safety software for healthcare enterprises since 1991, Meta's products enable hospital staff, including physicians, nurses and pharmacists, to improve outcomes while reducing overall costs. For more information mail at sales@metapharmacy.com.
SOURCE: Southern Ohio Medical Center