Double-Checking Your Prescriptions

Those bar-codes at the grocery store? We use them to ensure you get the right dose of the right medication.

After doctors type in your prescription, it is sent to our hospital pharmacy, where the order is filled. We have pharmacists there all the time, but to fill 6,000 orders each day, we use Robbie, a 35-foot-long pharmacy robot.

As an extra safety precaution, each drug is packaged in an individual wrapper and labeled with a bar code (like what you see in the grocery store). When the medication arrives on the patient's care unit, nurses scan the bar code into a computer that shows the patient’s electronic medication record. Nurses then scan a patient's wristband, confirming twice that the medication is correct. This ensures the right patient gets the right dose of the right medicine at the right time.

Prescriptions Ordered by Computer

Whenever our doctors order a prescription or test for you in the hospital, they do not use pen and paper. They type it on a handheld computer using a system called Computer Assisted Physician Order Entry (CAPOE). This automated system eliminates the possibility of handwriting mistakes and makes sure there are no harmful drug interactions.

We're one of the first hospitals in the country to improve patient safety by installing this advanced system, and national studies show that computerized physician order entry reduces serious medication errors by 88 percent. We average 120,000 electronic orders each month.

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