Across the care continuum, barcode technology is one of the most effective ways to safely track medications and verify a patient’s five rights before administration: right patient, right drug, right dose, right route and right time.
The FDA mandates barcoding for many medications—but not radiopharmaceuticals. As a result, these drugs are vulnerable to dosing errors. And these errors can be costly: the average cost per incident is nearly $3,000, and medication errors in radiology are seven times more likely to cause patient harm than errors in other hospital settings.1
To address this challenge, Cardinal Health created the Safetrac™ Barcoding System, the nuclear medicine industry’s first and only system that tracks radiopharmaceuticals from beginning to bedside. Sanford Health implemented Safetrac™ in January 2016.
Outside of the nuclear medicine department, Sanford Health had been barcoding other medications for many years.
“We wanted to add the same capability to Nuclear Medicine to improve patient safety,” said Andrea Straus, Nuclear Medicine Supervisor. “Cardinal Health was already supplying all of our radiopharmaceuticals, so it just made sense to have them provide the barcoding solution as well. That way, we weren’t adding a third party.”
Since introducing Safetrac in 2015, Sanford Health has had zero radiopharmaceutical medication errors.
How the system works
Sanford Health uses a two-step process to verify that each patient dose contains the right medication amount. First, the nuclear medicine technologists visually check and double-check each dose. Then, the Safetrac™ Barcoding System adds another layer of security by confirming the technologist’s review.
At the point of administration, the technologist scans the patient’s wristband to verify the right patient, time and route. Then, the technologist scans the Safetrac™ barcode on the unit-dose to electronically verify the patient’s remaining five rights: right drug and dose. Only then—if all five are a match—does the patient receive the medication.
How does the Safetrac™ Barcoding System help ensure zero errors? By integrating with Sanford Health’s electronic health record (EHR) system, the Cardinal Health solution empowers the technologist to electronically verify a medication before it’s administered. Also—because of the system integration—the radiopharmaceutical dose is automatically added to the patient’s Medication Administration Record (MAR).
Getting started
Sanford Health and Cardinal Health collaborated closely to make the transition as smooth as possible. “The Cardinal Health team was very hands-on as we integrated and aligned the processes,” Straus said. At first, there was some hesitation among the technologists to implement a new technology. “Now they see its value in avoiding medication errors. If you’ve ever had an error as a technologist, you’d appreciate the value even more.”
Taking the next step
Implementing new barcoding technology was done in an effort to enhance patient safety in the nuclear medicine department. Straus states that “in a hospital, you don’t want to be the department that makes errors. Instead, you want to be one that patients can trust to provide the best care possible. Technologists should want to do what the rest of the hospital is doing to improve patient safety. It’s the right thing for our patients, hospital and technologists themselves.”
Sanford Health strives for zero dosing errors. Get the case study.
About Sanford Health
Sanford Health is an integrated health system headquartered in the Dakotas. It is one of the largest health systems in the nation with 43 hospitals and nearly 250 clinics in nine states and four countries. Sanford Health’s 27,000 employees, including 1,400 physicians, make it the largest employer in the Dakotas. Nearly $1 billion in gifts from philanthropist Denny Sanford have allowed for several initiatives, including global children’s clinics, genomic medicine and specialized centers researching cures for type 1 diabetes, breast cancer and other diseases. For more information, visit sanfordhealth.org.