The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit watchdog committed to driving quality, safety, and transparency in the U.S. health care system, released its 2017 report on medication safety. The report, analyzed by Castlight Health, included the first-ever public reporting of hospitals’ use of bar code medication administration (BCMA) to reduce medication errors, as well as reporting on the implementation and efficacy of hospitals’ computer physician order entry (CPOE) systems. Collectively, both technologies can be highly effective in reducing the incidence of medication errors, the most common error that occurs in hospitals. Disappointingly, fewer than one in four hospitals fully met both the BCMA and CPOE standards for medication safety, signaling a need for continued transparency and quality improvement.
Read more:
- 2017 Report on Medication Safety (PDF). Leapfrog Group Castlight Health. April 2017
- Latest Report: First-ever Data on Bedside Bar Coding Shows Hospitals Have the Technology to Safely Administer Medication, but Fall Short on Using It Effectively. Leapfrog Group. April 27, 2017