Anesthesia barcoding system and USP data?

I haven't seen the whole report yet, but USP just released their analysis of peri-operative medication errors and are recommending barcoding as one solution.

"The strongest endorsement of using technology was in the post-anesthesia-care units, where researchers found medication errors in 11% of the sample cases—including two which required life-saving interventions—and concluded that they were all preventable and suggested using automated dispensing devices and bar-coding systems to lower the risk of error."

Does anyone have experience with anesthesia barcoding systems? We had piloted one system, SaferSleep, and showed an increase in documentation. We are just now evaluating the data for safety, particularly looking at prevented errors.

We had a "near miss" in the OR where an insulin drip was almost administered instead of a pre-op antibiotic back in Spring 2004. We started a pilot with SAFERsleep in the Fall of 2004 and collected two years of data. It was surprisingly easy; the anesthesiologists and CRNAs were able to learn the system with minimal training and readily used it over manual record-keeping.
Here is a link to the website. Or you can contact me directly if you have questions.

I would be interested in others who have implemented anesthesia barcoding systems and what types of patient data they are analyzing for medication error prevention.

www.safersleep.com

Thanks,

Agatha L. Nolen, M.S., D.Ph., FASHP
Director, OPPS
HCA Corporate Offices
2515 Park Plaza, Bldg II-3W
Nashville, TN 37203
615-344-6233
work: agatha.nolen@hcahealthcare.com
Home: cnolen47@bellsouth.net