Using Barcode Medication Administration to Improve Quality and Safety: Findings From the AHRQ Health IT Portfolio

摘要

Since 2004, AHRQ has awarded over $260 million in funding for research in health IT. The AHRQ health IT portfolio consists of grants and contracts to support planning, implementation, and evaluation of various information technologies that were intended to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care delivery. This portfolio includes a National Resource Center for Health IT (NRC), which was created to support AHRQ-funded projects in adopting and evaluating health IT. The NRC has established an infrastructure for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating best practices and lessons learned from its portfolio of health IT projects. This report focuses on grants in AHRQ's health IT portfolio that are implementing or evaluating barcoding technologies to improve care for patients, increase efficiency, and contain costs. The analysis presented here provides a snapshot of these funded activities. The scope of this discussion is limited to challenges faced by grantees in developing, implementing, or evaluating barcoding interventions.