The June 17, 2010 issue of ISMP Medication Safety Alert I received has an interesting article on the unintended negative consequences of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulation requiring medications to be administered within 30 minutes of their scheduled dosing time. I’m sure that the CMS 30-minute rule was created with good intentions in mind, but in reality it creates a lot of anxiety and bad habits. According to the ISMP article, the CMS 30-minute rule “may be causing unintended consequences that adversely affect medication safety. While following the 30-minute rule may be important to hospitals, many nurses find it difficult to administer medications to all their assigned patients within the 30-minute timeframe. This sometimes causes nurses to drift into … unsafe work habits.†Those unsafe work habits include removing meds from automated dispensing cabinets (ADC) for multiple patients at once, removing meds ahead of time, falsifying documentation to meet the 30-minute rule and preparing doses ahead of time; all dangerous practices.
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Tag: BCMA
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Is the 30-minute rule for medication administration good or bad?
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Cool Technology for Pharmacy – NDC Translator
Last week I posted about some bar-coding troubles we were having. One of the comments regarding the information in the post was left by a pharmacist named Max Peoples. Max offered up some great information and mentioned a piece of software called NDC Translator from RxScan.From Max’s comment: “One answer to the medication NDC # barcode scanning problem is to use the software called NDC Translator(TM) with your barcode scanners. Information at http://www.rxscan.com/rx.shtml
It intercepts the raw data coming from the barcode scanner, evaluates it’s content and if it contains the 10 digit NDC # (required to be there by law in a medication barcode) it converts the raw data into the 11 digit NDC # format and then sends the 11 digit NDC over to the application you are scanning into, in this case Jerry’s barcode labeling software.â€
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An almost disastrous bar-coding mishap
At some point in the past few days it was decided that our technicians should re-label all injectable controlled substances with one of our “after market†flag labels. I’m not sure when or how the decision was made, but it was. When questioned about it, the rationale behind the decision was that the nurses were wasting unused medication at the ADCs and not taking the vial to the bedside. And apparently the solution was to use our flag labels because they offer a peel away section that can be taken to the bedside with the drug in a syringe for scanning and administration purposes.
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Top blog posts and searches from last week (25)
I always find it interesting to see what brings people to my website and what they decided to read once they get here.
Most read posts over the past 7 days:
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – RxVerify – RxVerify is a neat piece of software that fits a nice little niche.
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – This was before I started putting the name of the cool technology in the blog title. This particular post was from June 18, 2009 and covered Alaris Smartpumps.
- Best iPhone / iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists – As I’ve said before, just throw any Apple product in the post and it’s bound to get some hits.
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Another post from before I started putting the name of the cool technology in the blog title. This particular post was from September 10, 2009 and covered the capsule machine.
- Medscape Mobile for the BlackBerry – Looks like interest in Medscape Mobile for the BlackBerry devices is starting to slip. Still, it’s amazing that this post stays on the list.
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Practice Fusion EMR – Great piece of software.
- Curriculum Vitae
- Bar-code musings
- Quick update: Pharmacy iPad use – What the heck is an iPad, anyway?
- Scanning difficulties with certain barcodes – I received some great feedback on this information
Top searchterm phrases used over the past 7 days:
- “alaris pump“
- “transparency” – Interesting, I’ve never talked about transparency in healthcare.
- “jerry fahrni“
- “black cloudâ€
- “cloud computing cartoonâ€
- “fenton capsule“
- “alaris iv pump“
- “bcma and iv interoperability“
- “va hospital with rfid scanner“
- “ipad pharmacy applications“
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Top blog posts and searches from last week (24)
I always find it interesting to see what brings someone to my website and what they decided to read once they get here.
Most read posts over the past 7 days:
- Medscape Mobile for the BlackBerry – Still rolling along after several weeks at the top. The BlackBerry is a long way from being dead.
- Participation in the ASHP Summer Meeting from afar #ashpsm10 – I would like to see ASHP adopt some form of live webcast during their large annual meeting like the Summer Meeting and Midyear. I don’t see a downside.
- Scanning difficulties with certain barcodes
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – Practice Fusion EMR – Great piece of software.
- A recent trifecta for bar-coding
- Best iPhone / iPod Touch Applications for Pharmacists – Just throw any Apple product in the mix and it’s bound to make the list.
- Quick update: Pharmacy iPad use – See #6 comment
- Cool Technology for Pharmacy – This was before I started putting the name of the cool technology in the blog title. This particular post was from Jun 18, 2009 and covered Alaris Smartpumps.
- Curriculum Vitae
- Musings on the “cloud”
Top searchterm phrases used over the past 7 days:
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A recent trifecta for bar-coding
Bar-code medication administration has been around for a while, but hasn’t gained the same notoriety as other forms of healthcare technology like computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and clinical decision support (CDS). However, it looks like the tide is starting to change as we’re currently in a unique position to see bar-coding from several different angles.
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