Roadmap for Planned Change, Part 2: Bar-Coded Medication Administration

Change—savored by some and feared by many. How do you as nurse leaders use your knowledge and insight to move forward and transfer your vision for quality and safety into reality? What do you need to do to get key stakeholders on the bus and, in some cases, even drive the bus? The roadmap for planned change allows for an infrastructure of thought brought to increase the likelihood for successful change. Successful change is important to our patients and to us as providers of that care.This article, the second of a two-part series, focuses on the application of change theory and the elements of project management most critical to successfully implementing a bar-coded medication administration (BCMA) program. Examples will be from one hospital's experience, Saint Francis Medical Center in Grand Island, Nebraska, to a health system's (Catholic Health Initiatives, Denver, Colorado) approach to planning for 30 hospitals.The definition of the BCMA program includes a consistent, integrated information technology strategy, with a focus on point-of-care BCMA to ensure that the right person receives the right medication, in the right dosage, via the right route, at the right time (five rights). The bar code on medication is scanned before administration to patients.