A pair of Iowa Trinity Health community hospitals — Mercy Medical Center in North Iowa (Mason City), and Mercy Medical Center in Dubuque — have implemented CareMobile, a point-of-care medication tool from Kansas City, Mo.’s Cerner Corp.
CareMobile will work in tandem with Genesis, Trinity’s EMR. Unlike stand-alone bar coding systems, the use of CareMobile with Genesis combines the safety features of CPOE at the time a medication is ordered, with the safety of bar coding at the time a medication is administered.
Using a small, hand-held device at the patient’s bedside, Cerner says a nurse first scans a patient’s bar coded wristband to verify the right patient encounter. Next, a bar coded medication is scanned to ensure it’s the same drug ordered by the doctor via the Genesis system. Once confirmed, the medication is dispensed, and the information is electronically transferred to the patient’s EMR.
Trinity Health is the fourth-largest Catholic healthcare system in the country. Based in Novi, Mich., Trinity Health operates 43 acute-care hospitals, 379 outpatient facilities, and 26 long-term care facilities.
