I will continue to encourage investment and development of the kinds of technology demonstrated today and hope to see these devices used around the nation. I want to emphasize that errors are seldom due to carelessness or lack of trying hard enough. Neil Reed, pharmacy director for the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho, said that his hospital improved patient safety by installing an automated robotic device in its pharmacy and computerized cabinets in each nursing unit. The hospital normally handles 80,000 to 90,000 drug items each month, an average of 14 to 16 drug items per patient per day. At the hearing Dr. Harold Allen of Picos, Inc., demonstrated a handheld electronic device his firm developed.
Physicians use it to write prescriptions which are then printed legibly for signing.
Allen said the software is inexpensive, a factor important in rural settings and low-income areas. To aid those who are visually impaired, Mr. Peter Klein of En-Vision America showed senators a handheld device used to identify prescriptions. Information about the medication is stored in the memory of a microchip embedded within a paper label on the prescription bottle.