To prevent these errors, safety-conscious hospitals are adopting barcode-enabled medication administration software and sharing their results with their peers.

Medication safety expert Susanne Larrabee, RPh, will share her experiences in using barcode technology to protect patients from medication errors at the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) Midyear Clinical Meeting next week in Atlanta. The world's largest annual gathering of pharmacists, the conference will be held Dec. 8-12 at the Georgia World Congress Center.

A pioneer in the development and implementation of barcode-enabled point-of-care (BPOC) medication safety technology, Larrabee will discuss "Recognizing Institutional Benefits of a BPOC Medication Administration System" at 4 p.m., Dec. 9, (Room A402) as part of a Management Case Studies Session (A) beginning at 2 p.m.

The Northern Michigan Hospital clinical pharmacist and her colleagues in Petoskey have been using BPOC technology from Bridge Medical to protect patients from preventable medication errors since 1998. Today approximately 50 hospitals -- including pediatric and teaching hospitals -- have contracted with Bridge to deploy the Bridge MedPoint patient safety system.

"MedPoint has not only prevented a significant number of potential errors, but the information we have gained through its use has allowed us to do root cause analysis and change some of our processes," explained Larrabee, "insuring that we are eliminating the sources for potential errors in our medication delivery process."

The 30,000-member ASHP has been urging the FDA to mandate barcodes on all medication packages to significantly improve patient safety in the nation's hospitals and health systems. "Barcodi
'"/>

Contact: Carol Somer
csomer@bridgemedical.com
858-314-5538
Bridge Medical, Inc.
3-Dec-2002