Regarding the management of blood preparations, since September 1995 the Ministry of Heath, Labour and Welfare has had to make and/or to keep documentary records such as the product name, date of dispensing, the patient's name and lot number and so on. At Yamanashi Medical University Hospital, to cope with deleterious accidents caused by blood preparations, we developed a new system for the management of blood preparations. This system consists of a printing system for confirmation labels for blood prescriptions and a computerized management system concerning the medication. In this study, the effect of this new management system on the rational use of blood preparations was evaluated. Compared with the former system, the time required to dispense blood preparations decreased from about 500 to 170 seconds per case. Furthermore, based on a questionnaire to medical doctors and/or nurses, it appeared that this system could reduce the time required to manage blood preparations and improve the rational use of injectable drugs.
