Hospital Barcode System Emerging Elsewhere

Every patient has rights.

There are five rights, in particular, that are crucial to his or her survival.

Hospital staff must ensure they have the right dosage of the right medication for the right patient - and also the right frequency and right delivery method (intravenous, oral, etc.).

Brooksville and Spring Hill Regional hospitals introduced a new barcode system nearly two years ago that ensured all of those "rights" would be covered.

"The nurse has the information right there at the patient's bedside and she's not tied down to a computer," said Jason Baldwin, the director of pharmacy at Brooksville Regional.

Baldwin was referring to the IntelliDOT Safescan System, which uses hand-held wireless devices that are connected to the pharmacy's computer system. It was designed to reduce medication errors.

The system was profiled last week on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Among the guests was Dennis Quaid, the Hollywood actor whose twin daughters were nearly killed shortly after their birth in November 2008 when they received 1,000 times the normal amount of blood thinner.

The case made national news. It was something that easily could have been prevented had the hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., instituted the IntelliDOT system, said Connie Watson, the chief nursing officer at Brooksville Regional.

"The nurses would've had that barcode system at their bedside and that wouldn't have happened," she said.

To Baldwin, the purpose behind the system is to help medical staff differentiate among the many drugs that look and sound alike. It also gives them the precise dosage amount at their fingertips.

"It's used every time a patient receives medication," he said.

The devices they carry are slightly larger than the average personal digital assistant (PDA). They can carry them in their pockets.

"There seems to be a push in that direction," said Baldwin, who claimed up to 20 percent of the nation's hospitals use the IntelliDOT system.

"It's not a cost-savings system," he said. "The focus was patient-safety. Approximately 100,000 patients died from medical errors in 1999."

He said his statistics came from a well-known article in the Institute of Medicine.

"It was an eye-opener for many people," Baldwin said of the article.

At Brooksville Regional, the IntelliDOT system is used in intensive care, surgical units, joint center and other in-patient departments, Watson said.

Kathy Burke, the chief executive officer at Brooksville Regional and a former nurse, said the IntelliDOT system was "built by nurses for nurses and takes into account the way nurses work.

"They can use the device with one hand so their focus is always where it should be - on their patients," she said.