Bar Code Medication Administration

The GAPS Center has researched the impact of bar coding technology on the process of medication administration. Although bar coding is traditionally viewed as a way to unambiguously identify patients and medications via scanned barcodes, the introduction of the bar coding technology has had wide-reaching impacts on how medication administration is conducted in the VA. Based on 27 hours of ethnographic observation prior to and 32 hours following the introduction at two hospitals, we identified unintended side effects resulting from design decisions that are likely to create new paths to medication adverse events (MAEs). These design decisions include poor usability on certain documentation features, unobservable automated actions of the computerized system, and increased rigidity in the distribution of authority and responsibility between doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. Collaborations have continued with healthcare personnel to develop and evaluate the impact of improvements to the information system on team performance during planned interventions at the VA as well as in a laboratory setting with healthcare practitioners interacting with experimental prototypes in cooperative simulation studies.

View a paper on BCMA (pdf)

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