Fast and reliable pharmacy drugs verification is vital for proper pharmacy operation. Pharmacists are responsible for ensuring that the right drug is consistently given to the right patient. In a profession with very strict regulations, it’s crucial to have an accurate record of all drugs passing through the pharmacy. Errors have dangerous impacts and are very costly.
For years, national associations for pharmacists worldwide have encouraged pharmacies to use barcode technology for inventory management, dose preparation and packaging, and dispensing of drugs.
This reliable identification method ensures that all single sales units distributed, deployed for intermediate storage or used in preparation of patient doses are the correct products, neither expired nor recalled.
Manual packaging of drugs.
Compounding, repackaging, and labeling processes (e.g. tracking of source ingredients).
Retrieving medications from automated dispensing machines.
Dispensing from pharmacy to external locations.
Using barcodes in these operations enhances patient safety by improving accuracy of core pharmacy functions, avoiding errors in medication administration, and simplifying the daily activities of pharmacists.
The use of barcodes in inventory management, dose preparation and packaging, and dispensing improve patient safety in numerous ways:
Barcode verification is also highly effective for use on bulk packages (e.g. bar code on unopened cases of unit-dose packages) to confirm the contents of each item in the case. For patient-specific doses, each individual container must be identified.
The equipment and training costs for a pharmacy-based barcode identification implementation are minimal. Periodic system upgrades and possible expansions are easy to implement.
In-pharmacy use of barcode verification increases patient safety and quality of care. It also provides data for statistical analysis of the pharmacy distribution operations to evaluate correct staffing, identify causes of repetitive errors, and improve overall management of the drug distribution process.
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