Workarounds with Barcode Medication Administration Systems
Barcode medication administration (BCMA) has been widely adopted in healthcare settings to prevent medication errors. Barriers to effective implementation of BCMA can lead to “workarounds”—another ECRI Top 10 patient safety concern for 2024. Understanding the barriers and creating strategies to eliminate workarounds can contribute significantly to improved patient safety.
In a recent study, BMC Nursing explored facilitators and barriers to the utilization of BCMA. Several themes impacting effectiveness emerged, including training, culture/accountability, equipment, staffing/workload, ergonomics, infection control, and medication-related challenges.
BCMA compliance is a quality metric that every hospital should be monitoring regularly.
Your Medical Mutual Risk Manager would be happy to assist you in the assessment of workflows, barriers, and opportunities.
This article falls under CLINICAL/PATIENT SAFETY in the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) risk domains.
Risks associated with the delivery of care to patients, residents, and other health care customers. Clinical risks include failure to follow evidence-based practice, medication errors, hospital acquired conditions (HAC), serious safety events (SSE), health care equity, opportunities to improve safety within the care environments, and others.