AdminRx enhances patient safety

Baptist Hospital East nurses and respiratory therapists administer hundreds of medications to patients each day. Making sure each patient receives the right medication and right dosage is critical to patient safety.

Technology is making the task a little easier. The new technology, AdminRx®, was used first on the Vascular/Thoracic Unit (VTU). It has since been rolled out to other nursing units.

With just a few clicks of a button using a handheld device, nurses and therapists can check medications, dosages and when medications should be given, as well as accessing patient profiles and other information.

Patients are given a unique medication bar-coded arm bracelet, which is scanned with the handheld device prior to administering medications. If the scanner indicates that the patient and medication match, the dosage can be given. The tool prevents medication errors in patients.

As soon as the written physician orders are faxed to the Pharmacy, the medications are entered in Meds Manager and nurses are able to access that information immediately with the handhelds. With the old paper format, nurses would have to check the patient’s chart or see the physician if a new medication was ordered.

Once a medication is given, documentation is sent to the patient’s chart, again with the click of a button. Nurses can also record pain scale information as well using the handheld device. Physicians also received training on how to access AdminRx information.

The staff has access to the information as they see their patients which gives an additional layer of patient safety. It provides additional communication between the pharmacy and professional staff administering medication. Pharmacy can profile a request for order clarification through the handheld device, rather than having to try to find the nurse or respiratory therapist.

The intent of the program and software is bar-coding assistance with the five rights if medication administration: right patient, right drug, right dose, right time and right route.

This is the second major technological step Baptist East has taken to improve patient safety. The first was installation of a robot in Pharmacy to select patient medications.

The hospital also has a number of other measures in place, including the “ID Me” program to prompt staff to verify a patient’s identity verbally before any procedure, transporting or giving a medication and its involvement in the national “Five Million Lives” campaign sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.