רוקחות-פרמקולוגיה

HHS to propose bar codes for prescription drugs

By Julie Rovner

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) – The US Department of Health and Human Services will propose a rule early next year that would require drugmakers to put bar codes on their products in an effort to reduce the incidence of medical errors, a top official said Wednesday.

HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation Bobby Jindal told reporters at a Capitol Hill briefing that HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson "has been very interested in the use of technology" to help prevent the errors. The Institute of Medicine reported in 1999 that medical mistakes are responsible for the deaths of up to 98,000 Americans annually. Medication errors are among the most frequent, the report said.

Jindal, who first discussed the upcoming proposal at a meeting of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists in New Orleans earlier this week, said the plan is largely aimed at preventing medication errors in hospitals. The idea is to have medications, including those that are packaged in single doses, marked with bar codes that could be matched to bar codes on patients' hospital identification bracelets to prevent giving the wrong dose or the wrong medicine.

The bar codes would include such information as a unique product code number, a lot number and an expiration date. The information would not only facilitate matching, but also would aid in product recalls when necessary.

Jindal said the Department of Veterans Affairs health system has already moved to purchase bar code scanning systems, but is being hampered because most products still lack the codes.

A spokesman for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said that the proposal does have the potential to reduce errors, but that his group needs "to see the details." Such a proposal, he said, could be "technically challenging, potentially time-consuming, and potentially very expensive."

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