I happen to see this
link on the ASHP web site, on an ROI of bar code scanning for administration. The ROI is a real piece of junk science.
Seems to me that evidence based practice should be a goal of ASHP. [Of course supporting hospital pharmacists from not going to jail for doing their job should be one of their goals, but
that is ignored as well.]
Some examples of the bogus nature of this ROI:
- 87% administration error avoidance? What reference has this? Complete fantasy.
- 1995 data? (although I have used this study at times).
- Applying the Poon data to this might be better. Although fully half of the Potential Adverse Drug Events in the Poon study are 'documentation errors', which baffles me how that harms patients, outside of a few stretch cases. I am going to talk to Eric Poon prior to writing a critique, btw.
- Bar coding in the pharmacy is a bit closer and has a lot better ROI analysis for using Bar codes in the pharmacy, not for administration.
- There is good science that applying good medication practices, like avoid interruptions would have a better benefit on patients than any bar code boondoggle.
John Poikonen, Pharm.D.