NR 361: BAR CODE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION

Bar code medication administration plays an important role in healthcare. Bar code medication administration, or BCMA, works with the use of an information technology solution, such as an electronic medication administration record (eMAR), with item-specific identification (Using Barcode Medication Administration to Improve Quality, 2008). This bar code medication checks the five rights against the eMAR which includes the right patient, right medication, right dose, right route, and right frequency or time. This topic is important with medication administration in healthcare because the use of bar code medication administration helps in decreasing the amount of medication errors. Not only does this have an impact on reducing the possible of medication errors but it also can help with documentation errors. Because of some nurses working fast and multitasking, they can sometimes forget to document on something they had already administered. With the use of bar code medication administration, documentation is automatically done when the medication is scanned.