Preventive Effect for Dispensing Errors and Incidents by Drug Verification and Quantity Management System Using Personal Digital Assistants and Medicine Barcodes

Abstract

In February 2015, we introduced a drug verification and quantity management system using personal digital assistants and medicine barcodes to prevent dispensing errors. We evaluated the effect of this system by comparing the number of dispensing errors and incident cases for one year before and after the introduction. The time required for dispensing was prolonged from about 28.4 seconds to 37.3 seconds per drug, about 1.3 times. The number of dispensing errors for one year before and after system introduction significantly decreased from 33.8 ± 4.7 per month to 5.8 ± 0.8 per month (P < 0.01). In addition, the number of incidents significantly decreased from 6.0 ± 0.9 per month to 3.2 ± 0.5 per month (P = 0.02). The system seems to be useful as a tool of medical safety measures because it significantly lowers the number of dispensing errors and incidents.