Improving Medication Administration Safety in Solid Organ Transplant Patients Through Barcode-Assisted Medication Administration

Solid organ transplant recipients are prescribed a high number of medications, increasing the potential for medication errors. Barcode-assisted medication administration (BCMA) is technology that reduces medication administration errors. An observational study was conducted at an academic medical center solid organ transplant unit before and after BMCA implementation. Medication accuracy was determined and administration errors were categorized by type and therapeutic class of medication. A baseline medication administration error rate of 4.8% was observed with wrong dose errors representing 78% of the errors. During the post-BCMA period the medication administration error rate was reduced by 68% to 1.5% (P = .0001). Wrong dose errors were reduced by 67% (P = .001), and unauthorized medication administrations were reduced by 73%. Steroids were associated with the highest error rate. The results of this study suggest that routinely adopting BCMA has the potential to reduce medication administration errors in transplant patients.