new delhi a bar code around a patients wrist will now protect himher from medication errors considered among the top 10 killers by world health organization who a hospital in delhi max has introduced the bar coded medication administration bcma a unique concept that was first conceived by an american nurse in 1994 bcma uses barcodes to prevent human errors in the distribution of prescription medications at hospitals it makes sure that patients receive the correct medications at the correct time by electronically validating and documenting medications the information encoded in bar codes allows for the comparison of the medication being administered by the nurse on the patient with what was ordered for him dr neena pahuja chief information officer of max healthcare said we are implementing bcma in our hospitals across delhi bathinda and mohali each patients barcode holds all the vital information about the patient and his medication including what drugs she is allergic to bcma ensures it is the right patient getting the right medication at the right time the right dose and by the right route this greatly reduces medication errors and improves time of delivery by 97 so how does the bar code work bcma consists of a barcode printer a barcode reader and a mobile computer called computer on wheels cow each time a nurse needs to administer a medicine she takes the cow to the patient area and scans the wrist band and the drugs barcode a signal then alerts the nurse if the medicine matches the patient once the nurse administers the medicine it also gets recorded online thereby informing doctors if the pills were given on time a compliance check is carried out every week earlier nurses had to note down the time of the drug being administered manually paper record can be fudged dr pahuja said the project won the nasscom award last week for exemplary information technology work in healthcare the software also has information on what drugs the patient is allergic to so whenever a doctor prescribes the drug the software alerts the pharmacy making the doctor change the medicinebcma is a routine feature in us hospitals with studies showing that it reduces medication errors by 65 to 86 bcma was first implemented in the veteran medical centre in topeka kansas usa it was conceived by a nurse who was inspired by a car rental service using barcode max has also implemented a private cloud for patient data across hospitals this allows patient data to be available across locations based on the need for second or super specialists opinion the electronic health record ehr which has been implemented in the hospitals contains the patients history medication diagnosis progress notes allergies treatment plan diagnostic reports and surgery notes emergency patients admitted in mohali bathinda and shalimar bagh hospitals can get a second opinion from a larger specialist team available at the emergency of the superspecialty hospital at saket or other locations at any time oncology patients in