Barcode Medication Administration

Running head: BARCODE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION
BARCODE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

BARCODE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION1
Question 1
In order to improve the outcomes of patient care and support the nursing practice, by
developing and maintaining medical systems and data, the nursing field incorporates information
sciences, computer and nursing, altogether which is known as Nursing Informatics (McCormick
and Saba, 2015). The priority areas in the Nursing informatics, to internationally promote health,
are mobile health, patient safety, big data sciences, patient engagement, clinical decision support,
clinical implementation/evaluation, electronic quality measures, usability, data exchange,
interoperability and education & competencies. From the given case study of Computerization
can create safety hazards: A Barcoding near miss by McDonald, C, I think that the disorientation
created in between the bar coded wristbands of patients Mr. P and Mr. D (both suffering from
different illness) can result in fatal consequences in terms of patient’s health. For me, with the
technology advancement, the need of nursing informatics is extensively important to improve the
healthcare. At the same time, the evolution of nursing informatics requires extra attention as to
avoid severe consequences regarding patient’s healthcare. The use of barcoded wristbands is
useful to maintain, transfer and extract the patient’s health records and the hospital officials trust
the barcoded wristbands blindly, so if there are any unintentional mistakes like the one in the
case, the consequences will be suffered by the patient, which could be hazardous (Bonkowski et
al., 2013). Therefore, I think the use of nursing informatics is exceptional and remarkable but
when it comes to the patient’s healthcare and treatment, extra efforts and crosschecking
mechanisms should be developed in order to escape any fatal consequences.

BARCODE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION2
Question 2
Effective teamwork and communication is essential for the treatment of patients and
requires collaboration of the whole organization. The use of barcoded wristbands is effective for
the healthcare treatment but it requires extra efforts of cross checking the patient’s information
for efficient medications of patients. In the given case, after the realization of the unintentional
disorientation and exchange of barcoded wristbands of patients, Mr. D and Mr. P by the clerk,
the clerk printed new wristband for Mr. P and then immediately collaborated with the general
ward and informed the nurse about the disorientation. The nurse then gives Mr. D a new
barcoded wristband. The hospital officials, nurses, doctors and staffs collaborate to form a
system, to provide effective and efficient healthcare treatment (Reeves et al., 2017). Different
interdisciplinary teams are founded to maintain the treatment and medications and other vital
information required for the effective healthcare cure of the patient (Ohashi et al., 2014). The
interdisciplinary teams also assists in dealing with the issues created by the use of barcoded
wristbands, like in the given case, where the clerk collaborated with the nurse in general ward
and requested her to do the needful, to avoid the fatal consequences of the unintentional mistake.