Bar codes urged to halt hospital errors

A LEADING hospital pharmacy chief has called for bar code systems to be introduced in all hospitals to reduce the number of medical errors.

While there are no national figures for drug administration errors in hospitals, an ongoing study at Tallaght Hospital logged 400 errors last year and is expected to record up to 500 this year.

Tim Delaney, the hospital’s pharmacy head, said there was no doubt unnecessary mistakes were being made and a bar code system would ensure patients would not be put in danger.

“Unlike in the US, there are no hospitals in Ireland with bar code scanners for pharmacies and they all ought to have them. What we want and what we need is to install a situation where we can have bar code scans to check drug distribution to patients.

“You can have full traceability of a drug, whereas at the moment everything is done by hand and is often difficult to trace. It will decrease medication errors dramatically and, as a consequence, increase patient safety,” said Mr Delaney.

The issue is one of the topics for discussion at an international conference to be held in Dublin this weekend. The conference - Understanding Human Limitations and Using Technology to Prevent Medication Errors - will hear from some of the world’s leading medication error specialists.

Although the true extent of mistakes being made by hospital staff here are not known, it is estimated that thousands could be receiving the wrong medication or wrong dosages each year.

Last year in Britain there were more than 10,000 recorded medicine errors resulting in 1,100 deaths. The US recorded 750,000 medical errors with a death rate of between 44,000 and 90,000. Some estimates, based on international figures, claim that one Irish patient is probably dying each year as a consequence of a medication error in a hospital. Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients’ Association praised the proactive approach of Tallaght and called for all hospitals to introduce similar non-punitive systems for staff to report errors.

“Errors are happening and in a lot of cases we don’t know about them and it may be a case that even the patient doesn’t know about them,” Mr McMahon said. According to international statistics, one in every 300 errors will result in a serious, and possibly fatal, adverse effect but experts stress nothing can be improved if mistakes are hidden.

“Four hundred reported mistakes are 400 opportunities to ensure that the same mistake doesn’t happen again. Hospitals have to be aware that a mistake has happened if they are to stop it happening again,” Mr McMahon continued.

The Department of Health has been closely following the Tallaght study and has established an Enterprise Liability Agency for processing and dealing with claims arising from medical errors.

Along with the agency, a mechanism has been put in place to ensure actions will be taken against hospitals rather than individual doctors. As part of the programme a national error database will also be established.