Errors during drug administration stage represent a significant percentage of adverse events associated with health care. Its prevalence is higher in critical care units, due to vulnerable patient population, characteristics of intensive care as well as complexity of pharmacotherapy. Errors can occur at any stage of the medication cycle although they often occur during administration, so nurses' role in prevention is essential. The bar code medication administration (BCMA) technology increases patient safety by instituting control time, but a poorly designed system or a faulty implementation can lead to low utilization in future. This paper describes implementation, evaluation, detection of problems and search for their possible solutions of a BCMA system in the intensive care unit at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires.
Keywords: Medication Errors; Medication Systems; Patient Safety.