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Article: Bar codes may help avoid the most common errors.
- Article from:
- Healthcare Risk Management
- Article date:
- May 1, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Bar codes may help avoid the most common errors
The road has been paved for using bar codes on all medications to reduce errors, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcing recently that is proposing a rule requiring bar codes on all medication packages, a mandate that some say would significantly improve patient safety in the nations hospitals. But dont think the bar codes will be an immediate fix for medication errors. Implementing the system will take time.
The proposed rule, announced by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, would require bar codes to include the National Drug Code (NDC), a system that contains the drug ...