Evidence briefings on interventions to improve medication safety: bar code medication administration systems

Policy question: Do bar code medication administration (BCMA) systems reduce administration errors and improve efficiency?

Current evidence shows: BCMA systems have the potential to reduce administration errors but are sometimes used incorrectly due to technology limitations and poor design (e.g. faulty barcodes). Evidence for reduced error rates comes from studies using voluntary incident report data. Controlled observational studies report inconsistent findings. Limited work has assessed cost of BCMA, although time-and-motion studies reveal reduced time administering medications and potentially more time spent in patient care following BCMA implementation.