08-28-2005
Intelligent patient wristband to reduce medication errors
Medication errors, caused by the incorrect medication or dose being given to the patient, cause over 1200 deaths a year. This can be due to drugs having similar packaging, illegible handwriting on the drug chart or incorrect identification of the patient.
Brunel Industrial Design and Technology student, Claire Dunne, has designed a reusable intelligent identity wristband that should eliminate patients being given the incorrect medicine.
Called Brilliant, the wristband works by using a sensor to match medicines against the patient. Brilliant scans electronic tags built in to the medicines packaging – making sure it is of the correct type.
Claire believes by electronically matching the drugs to the patient, her system would prevent these situations and ensure that human error is dramatically reduced.
How it works
The innovative wristband contains a sensor to scan medicines and a chip. The chip is programmed on the patient’s arrival at the hospital, with the patients’ details and drug requirements. The patients’ details are displayed on two small screens built into the wristband, which update when the drug is touched against the sensor.
The bracelet works in conjunction with electronic chips attached to the medicines packaging (called an iButton). When the drugs packaging is touched against the sensor on the wristband, Brilliant can recognise whether it is the correct drug or not.
The wristband then informs the nurse if the correct drug has been selected or not by displaying this information on the wristband’s screens. Each time a dose is given the date and time are logged in the chip contained inside the wristband.
This information can be downloaded on to a computer at the end of the patient’s stay in hospital for billing and auditing purposes. The wristbands electronics module is also re-usable by simply wiping the information on the chip.
(From Redferret)
Posted by Administrator in Health | RSS 2.0
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