Safety and Efficiency of Workflow Automation in Medication Tray Verification

Abstract

Specific Aims: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of using barcode assisted automation in the medication tray verification process on efficiency and error rates. Methods: The time required to prepare a medication tray was initially recorded. This was followed by a secondary employee reviewing the tray and recording medication errors in the tray. Following the implementation of the automation system, the time for each tray preparation was logged by the system and trays were randomly audited for errors via convenience sampling. Main Results: Automation produced an elimination of all observed errors, which can be quantified as an estimated mean reduction of 6.86 errors per day (95 percent CI, 6.53 to 7.19 errors, p-value of 0.00017). Additionally, efficiency in tray preparation improved with a mean reduction of 38.5 seconds per tray (p-value of 0.0003). Conclusions: Automation proved to improve both safety and efficiency during the tray verification process. The number of errors found in the trays were reduced significantly after the implementation of the barcode assisted automation system.