Albuquerque VA hospital administrators have
reactivated a medication-tracking computer
system that continues to draw fire from the
nurses' union, which claims it still doesn't
work.

. . .

But union president Susan Brooks, who
initially protested the system, saying it was
dangerous, said the computer system still
isn't getting the right medicine to the right
patient at the right time.

"The system is full of errors," she said during
a press conference Friday. Those errors could
lead to patients receiving the wrong medicine
and wrong dosages, she said.

. . .

But nurses weren't able to catch every error.
In one case, the computer system told a nurse
to give a patient insulin, but it omitted a note
to put him on a special diet first. The patient
received the insulin without the diet, and his
blood sugar reached a dangerous level. The
medical staff "pulled him out of a life-threatening
situation," Brooks said.

ABQ Journal

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), September 03, 2000