Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality
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Patient safety, in particular, medication safety, has become a major issue for healthcare providers, payers, and patients. Medication errors occur at an alarming rate, and the majority of non-intercepted medication errors originate at the point of care when a nurse mistakenly administers a medication. The 1999 Institute of Medicine report called for increasing the use of information technology to reduce medication errors. Realizing a 59% to 70% decrease in medication administration errors on individual nursing units, this hospital demonstrates how bar code point-of-care medication administration systems successfully track, reduce, and prevent bedside medicationerrors while having a positive effect on nursing satisfaction.
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David Brailer, MD PhD, was appointed the first National Health Information Technology Coordinator by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson on May 6, 2004. ⋯ Dana Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the first recipient of the National Library of Medicine Martin Epstein Award for his work in expert systems. Dr. Brailer was among the first medical students to serve on the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association.