Advocates of Patient Safety Technology to be Honored at the 7th Annual unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding

Bellevue WA, April 207, 2012— On May 2-4, 2012, in Anaheim, CA The TerraPharma Project, LLC will convene hospital executives, pharmacists, nurses, safety directors, and information technology professionals at The 7^th Annual unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding. Uniting approximately 100 healthcare institutions annually, The unSUMMIT educational event promotes skillful adoption of barcode-enabled point-of-care (BPOC) safety technologies in hospitals across North America.

According to the Institute of Medicine, medication errors contribute to the 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries and 7,000 drug-related deaths which occur each year in U.S. hospitals. Barcode scanning of patients, medications, laboratory specimens and blood products at the point of care, combined with pharmacy and nursing best practices, prevents harm to patients and saves lives.

Each year, The unSUMMIT community nominates and honors the exceptional contributions of individuals and institutions who have helped clear the path and accelerate the adoption of BPOC safety systems in hospitals across North America. This year’s Way-Paver Awards will be presented to recipients on May 2, 2012 in the following categories:

HOSPITAL—University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Madison WI

For two decades, the Hospital and Clinics (UWHC) has been a thought leader and early adopter of barcode technology and automation designed to create a safer medication use process. Along the way, the hospital has rigorously studied the before-and-after impact of barcode technology on patient safety, utilizing their findings to continuously improve quality of care.

In 1993 UWHC was the second hospital in America to use barcode driven robotics for dispensing medications, realizing a reduction of 24,000 dispensing errors per year.

In 2001, UWHC began a house-wide implementation of barcode medication administration (BCMA). Using blind-naïve direct-observation and event-reporting methods, UWHC’s research revealed an 87% reduction in medication administration error rates translating into over 300,000 errors avoided per year.

Over the years, UWHC has been generous and transparent in sharing their successes and challenges with colleagues across the country via countless presentations and articles as well as hosting site visits and vendor summits for technology improvement.

INDIVIDUAL—Judy Smetzer, RN, BSN

Since 1998, Judy Smetzer, a vice president of the Institute for Safe Medication practice (ISMP), has diligently served as editor of ISMP Medication Safety Alerts—a publication read by thousands of clinicians in essentially all US hospitals and influential with accreditation organizations and regulatory authorities including The Joint Commission, FDA, CMS, and CDC.

Her July 25, 2001 Safety Alert, “The supermarkets do it – so why can’t we raise the “bar” in health care?” was an early and clear call to hospitals to implement BCMA. Additionally, Smetzer was a leader in publishing the invaluable assessment tool for hospitals preparing for BCMA: Pathways for Medication Safety: Assessing Bedside Bar Coding Readiness. 

Smetzer’s articles, commentaries, news briefs, press releases and testimonies related to BCMA (approaching the 200 mark) not only compel hospitals to use BCMA but use it the right way. She has not hesitated to point out dangerous unintended consequences of poorly designed or improperly used technology and to identify and share remedies.

More than 50 leaders will share the barcoding experience of institutions including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Veterans Health Administration, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Vanderbilt University Medical Center, WellSpan Health, Lahey Medical Center, and Lancaster General Hospital. The full three-day conference agenda may be viewed at: http://www.unsummit.com/pdf/unSUMMIT2012brochure.pdf

About the Way-Paver Award

The Way-Paver Award was established by The TerraPharma Project in 2006 to honor the exceptional contributions of individuals and institutions that have helped clear the path and accelerate the adoption of BPOC technologies in hospitals across North America. Previous institutional recipients include Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Hospital Corporation of America, Veterans Health Administration, Lancaster General Hospital, WellSpan Health, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, and the FDA. Previous individual recipients include Michael Cohen, founder of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), Kenneth Barker of Auburn University, John Roberts of GS1 US Healthcare, and John Santell of US Pharmacopeia. To learn more about the award, go to unsummit.com.

About TerraPharma Project LLC

The TerraPharma Project, LLC (TTP) of Bellevue, WA, is a peer-to-peer education exchange, fueled by the conviction that barcode point-of-care (BPOC) technology is low-hanging fruit that delivers high returns for patient safety. Committed to promoting the adoption of BPOC in hospitals across the nation, TTP produces The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding (http://www.unsummit.com) and the online Point of Care Forum (www.pointofcareforum.com).

Media Contact

For media questions related to The unSUMMIT or the Way-Paver Awards, please contact TTP Co-Founder, Mark Neuenschwander, at mark@unsummit.com or 425 644-6797