• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

The Drug Index Safety System Can Help Pharmaceutical Companies Pressed to Meet California Mandate

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 April 2008, 09:01 CDT

The Drug Index Safety System, developed by Dr. Tracy and Mr. Brent Dallman, is a groundbreaking system that addresses issues that have been highlighted for years by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in regard to medication errors.

According to the Medical Errors Panel report, Prescription for Improving Patient Safety: Addressing Medication Errors, an estimated 150,000 Californians are sickened, injured or killed each year by medication errors, with an annual cost of $17.7 billion. As a result, by 2011, the state of California will require item level tracking of any drug distributed within the state. Pharmaceutical companies that do not comply will not be able to supply their drugs to healthcare entities in the state of California. This is part of the governor's reform to improve patient safety.

Currently, the small nature of many drug vials makes item level tracking more difficult -- in most cases one to five milliliter vials cannot contain enough readable electronic information. With the Drug Index Safety System, the smallest, most dangerous, most highly concentrated drugs can effectively be electronically tracked via record keeping software to become part of a patient's medical record. The Drug Index Safety System allows an enhanced identification area that protrudes from the vial, allowing for larger numbering and lettering, as well as bar code labeling. Without 100 percent electronic integration of all drugs, patient record keeping systems cannot alert healthcare workers about dangerous drug interactions, or the use of a wrong drug or dose. The Drug Index Safety System will provide the ability to complete the electronic pedigree and reduce errors that occur from visual reading or manual entry of the label information.

Patient record keeping systems save lives. The issue is that hospitals and pharmaceutical companies want solutions that are easily implemented into their drug storage and information systems. According to Brent Dallman, "By using the Drug Index Safety System, a company can work within current drug storage systems while providing a surface that will offers ample area for larger numbers and letters, without competing with either matrix or 2-D bar coding or radio frequency. The entire electronic pedigree can be housed on the smallest of vials by way of the extended key label."

According to Dallman, healthcare entities that employ this technology will have a business advantage for lengthening product lifecycles and facing future market changes, and will be able to more easily meet the 2011 California mandated timeframe. Not only can the keys be engineered for today's requirements, but they can also increase in size to accommodate any future requirements.

Forced Function

The Drug Index Safety System also employs forced function -- a physical constraint that makes it impossible for medication errors to occur. In this case, forced function is based on a series of keys. It starts with a drawer key that is permanently attached to any existing storage drawer. The drawer key will only accept the drug docking station that is its exact mate. The drug docking station will only accept the matching keyed drug vial, which includes the easy-to-scan pedigree information. This type of proven physical layer of safety is the gold standard in high-risk environments.

The Drug Index Safety System

Beginning in 2006, Dr. Tracy Dallman, an Indianapolis anesthesiologist, and Brent Dallman, a product developer, began working on a solution to solve drug-dispensing errors. The Dallmans have nearly 30 years of healthcare and entrepreneurial experience and development combined. Multiple healthcare perspectives were explored while developing the drug index safety system, including the scientific community, academia, the FDA, the CDC, and patient advocacy groups -- none of which had any financial stake in the development of the system. The Drug Index Safety System (www.drugindexsafetysystems.com) has a proven, internationally-protected design in over 120 countries, and was created with the goal of safely delivering life-saving and life-improving products. The patent rights are being offered for single purchase to either an individual entity or group of individuals.

Source: Business Wire

More News in this Category