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Building a Medication Dispensing System

How a Medical Computer Can Help Create a Medication Dispensing System

Each year, 7-9,000 people die due to prescription errors. That’s on top of the hundreds of thousands of patients who experience adverse reactions to improperly prescribed medicines. The cost of caring for patients who experience poor reactions to improperly prescribed meds exceeds $40 billion a year. This leads to patient dissatisfaction, readmissions, and wasted resources.

How does a medication dispensing system seek to combat these variables that endanger patients? And more importantly, if you want to create a medication dispensing system – one that works – how do you know you’re starting with the suitable medical computer systems?

What is Medication Dispensing?

Medication dispensing is preparing, prescribing, and dispensing prescription drugs to patients within the care facility. The idea behind blending the pharmacy with the clinical environment is that by dispensing medication in the clinic, physicians and nurses can catch issues more responsively and prevent or treat them before they have a chance to grow. Unfortunately, a medication dispensing system can be rife with an error if facilities aren’t careful.

What Are the Most Common Medication Dispensing Errors?

A study published by National Library of Medicine and narrowed down the cause of these errors to two major categories.

Category 1: Errors that resulted from “prescribing faults” or errors in judgment made when gauging for potential harm a patient could experience if they partake in a particular medication.

Category 2: Errors in prescription writing, communication, and information transcription.

Medical Computers Create Medication Dispensing Systems That Address These Issues

A good medical hardware manufacturer understands that the problems holding back medication dispensing systems can vary from facility to facility. Below are a few customizations that can make medical computers effortlessly fit into an effective medication dispensing system.

VESA Mounts Open Up Bedside Medication Dispensing

Healthcare computers with VESA mount compatibility allow for the devices to be mounted not only on carts for a portable solution but within individual patient rooms. Having a computer at the ready within every room gives staff the ability to dispense medication at the point of care and also facilitate conversation with a patient in the room as these meds are prescribed. This also means physicians can confirm prescriptions with patients to find any discrepancies or possible missed allergies.

RFID Scanning Eliminates the Possibility of Human Error

Computers on wheels and mounted PCs customized to include RFID scanners allow physicians to scan crucial information into their EHR systems that can be essential in eliminating improperly prescribed medication. Patient wristbands that hold identifying information patient can be scanned to confirm who is being treated, what they’re being treated for, what allergies they have, or what medications have given them adverse reactions in the past.

Barcode Scanning Promotes Inventory and Dosing Management

Jumping over to category 1 (issues of prescribing faults), barcode scanners that can also be custom-built into medical tablets and computers allow pharmacists to keep a vigilant eye on medication inventory and available doses.

If a patient requires a particular medication on time, a physician or nurse needs to know ASAP if the required dosages are available within their facility. Scanning in and out doses and medicines as they are delivered and administered gives everyone access to a medical workstation a bird’s eye view of what’s available to be prescribed. If something they need isn’t available, they can quickly pivot their treatments to adapt until proper resources are stocked.

Large Screens Support EMR Software

More often than not, medical record software is massively complex, with large pages of information with several different tabs for a single patient. These bloated pages of information regularly cause communication errors among staff who can miss a crucial piece of information or populate incorrect fields with the wrong data.

4K medical displays are high-def and boast a screen size that allows physicians, nurses, and pharmacists to have several of these pages and tabs open at once. Without worrying about scrolling and missing critical pieces of information, staff can receive a comprehensive view of a patient’s prescription history and allergies and improve their chances of making a better call when dispensing medication.

Tackle Common Pain Points When Building a Medication Dispensing System

Communication is vital across several industries, healthcare and medication dispensing included. Building a medication dispensing system that’s effective means investing in solutions that have a chance at promoting better communication between staff members who coordinate prescriptions and med dispensation. For more information on the kind of hardware that can facilitate this communication, contact an expert from Cybernet today.

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  • Cybernet Manufacturing