Patented Technology Uses Barcodes to Prevent Drug-Related Injuries in Hospitals

Barcodes are  being utilized in another healthcare safety device. Medisafe 1 Technologies Corp., has developed a special syringe locking mechanism that that will not allow the doctor to dispense the medication until the accuracy of its contents has been verified via barcode reader and database system.

The prototype has successfully passed the company's preliminary testing phase. The tests confirm the potential of the prototype to significantly reduce preventable drug-related injuries in hospitals.

The device uses a barcoded system to electronically confirm whether the syringe held by a medical practitioner contains the correct medication and dosage that has been prescribed to a particular patient, before allowing that medication to be physically administered.

"Medication administration errors in hospitals cause 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries and 70,000 deaths each year," said Jacob Elhadad, Chief Executive Officer of Medisafe 1 Technologies. "The preliminary tests of the patented locking-device prototype give us tremendous confidence that our product may aid in significantly reducing instances of such injuries."

"As the healthcare industry in the U.S. continues to mandate the usage of safer syringe technologies, including Barcoding Point of Care (BPOC) systems, Medisafe 1 Technologies is well positioned. Factoring the possibility of widespread implementation, the total potential addressable market for Medisafe's patented technologies could exceed $1 billion per year," Elhadad added.

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