THE IMPACT OF BARCODE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION ON PATIENT SAFETY: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

Patient safety is considered as an essential feature of healthcare system. Many trials have been conducted in order to find ways to improve patient safety, and many reports indicate that medication errors pose a threat to patient safety. \nThus, some studies have investigated the impact of bar code medication administration (BCMA) system on medication error reduction during the medication administration procedure. \nThis systematic review (SR) reports the impact of BCMA system on reducing medication errors to improve patient safety; it also compares traditional medication administration with the BCMA system. The review concentrates on the effectiveness of BCMA technology on medication administration errors, and on the accuracy of medication administration. This review also focused on different designs of quantitative studies, as they are more effective at investigating the impact of the intervention than qualitative studies. \nThe findings from this systematic review show various results depending on the nature of the hospital setting. Most of the studies agree that the BCMA system enhances compliance with the five rights’ requirement (right drug, right patient, right dose, right time and right route) of medication administration. In addition, BCMA technology identified medication error types that could not be identified with the traditional approach which is applying the five rights of medication administration. The findings of this systematic review also confirm the impact of BCMA system in reducing medication error, preventing adverse events and increasing the accuracy of the medication administration rate. However, BCMA technology did not consistently reduce the overall errors of medication administration. \nKeyword: Patient Safety, Impact, BCMA, eMAR