nscribe orders to medications sheets manually; the system generates a medication administration record (MAR), which is automatically updated when a doctor enters a new order.
Software can check for patient allergies to drugs, and drug conflicts, and post alerts (Lafleur, 2004, 30). Automatic dispensing cabinets can prepare medications for patients. Bar code implementation will help with ensuring the five ôrightsö of medication administration. However, The basic bar code point of care scanner will not pick up pharmacy errors, so still leaves some room for dosage errors.
The main barrier to instituting these new procedures is cost: not many hospitals have the funding to buy computer order entry systems with an estimated cost between $3 million and $20 million; automatic dispensing cabinets ranging from $450,000 to $3 million, and bar code equipment costing roughly $377,000 per hospital (Lafleur, 2004, 30). Computer literacy of staff, funding for staff resources and extended training sessions, technical support funding, changes in facility layout, new computer equipment needs, and integrating electronic and paper patient records are some o
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