Patient Safety Group Supports Bar-Coding of Drugs

The international Patient Safety Officer Society (PSOS, Gladwyne, PA, USA) has announced its support of mandatory bar-code labeling for human drug products, now being proposed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

According to the FDA, at least 30% of medical errors resulting in death involve FDA-regulated drugs, devices, and blood products, or vaccines. Bar-coding these could reduce that number of errors. The use of a scanner to compare the bar code on a drug product with a specific patient's drug regimen will enable nurses to easily verify, at the point of care, that the patient is receiving the right drug at the right dose at the right time.

"Use of bar-code technology in the hospital setting has been shown to effectively reduce medication and other errors,” said David Shulkin, M.D., president of PSOS. "We join our colleagues in supporting the FDA's efforts to accelerate this strategy in health care.” PSOS provides hospital patient safety officers with professional growth opportunities and advanced resources to lead their organizations in successful patient safety efforts. Membership is free to all patient safety officers anywhere in the world.



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Patient Safety Officer Society