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Medication Labelling: It Can Save Lives

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  1. 1. Medication Labelling: It can save lives..
  2. 2. Employees in the healthcare field strive to meet what is known as the five rights: The Right Patient The Right Drug The Right Dose The Right Delivery Method The Right Time
  3. 3. Medication labelling impacts all of these rights. There are huge consequences if a patient is not prescribed or administrated the correct medication. As such it is crucial that health care facilities have a solution in place that ensures that the correct medication gets to the correct patient.
  4. 4. Medication labels are a critical part of ensuring that the prescribed type and dosage is administered to the correct person at the correct time. Creating an appropriate label is an important part of patient care and safety.
  5. 5. Specially formatted labels can be created on-the-spot using a label printer and label printing software. There are many different forms of media needed in a healthcare facility as the labels vary greatly based on the type of container or medication packaging that needs to be labelled...
  6. 6. Syringes require flag labels so as to avoid covering up the syringe measuring notches; Pill bottles require small labels that will fit on a limited surface area; An IV bag requires labels with a specific patient, medication, date and time information; Blood bags utilize thermal transfer labels so they will last for as long as the blood needs to be stored. Those labels must also be ISBT 128 certified so that the adhesives will not leak into the bag.
  7. 7. Hospitals need to have a way of tracking and tracing treatments which can be done through labelling. All medication needs to be monitored from the time it is delivered in bulk to the stores department right up until it has been administered in a single dose to the patients.
  8. 8. The labels adhered to the medication would have a barcode that is specific to the patient and their treatment plan. The patient would be positively identified through their barcode wristband (for more information about the barcode wristband solution please see here). When the patients wristband is scanned along with the medications being prescribed, it generates data about the patients prescribed medications, the dosage amounts, frequency of consumption, and the interactions of various medications when administered together.
  9. 9. Hospital pharmacies are also utilizing colour to improve the ability of hospital staff to distinguish and accurately identify medications.