The Drug Index Safety System, developed by Dr. Tracy and Mr. Brent Dallman, is a system that enhances electronic patient record keeping systems, especially at the bedside.

Patient information systems, barcoding, electronic medical records, and item level tracking have been high priorities in health care for the last several years to address and reduce medication errors. These systems confirm health care workers are providing the right drug and dose to the right patient. These systems should allow for reconciliation of patient history and prescribed medication to avoid harmful or catastrophic medication errors.

Currently, the small nature of many drug vials, including heparin, makes accommodating a full drug pedigree impossible. With the Drug Index Safety System, the smallest, most dangerous, most highly concentrated drugs can effectively and electronically become part of a patient’s medical record.

The Drug Index Safety System provides an enhanced identification area that protrudes from the vial, allowing for larger numbering and lettering, as well as bar code labeling. With 100 percent electronic integration of all drugs, patient record keeping systems can immediately alert health care workers about dangerous drug interactions, allergies or the use of a wrong drug or dose.

According to Brent Dallman, “The Drug Index Safety System helps patient information systems do what they were meant to do—save lives. It is crucial that small, highly concentrated pharmaceuticals are organized, easy to read and finally have enough space to contain critical lifesaving information. The Drug Index Safety System will provide the ability to complete the electronic pedigree, reduce errors that occur from visual reading or manual entry of label information, and most importantly prevent the avoidable experience of an allergic reaction or the ultimate tragedy, death.”

Medication errors cause over 15,000 deaths per year, 66 percent of which are infants and children. For years hospitals and health care facilities have been asking for increased visibility of information on smaller, high concentration products to differentiate between look-alike and sound-alike drugs, as well as to delineate between drug dosage concentrations. The addition of the Drug Index Safety System would be a great step in the right direction for the safety of patients and peace of mind for families. In addition, health care entities that employ this technology will have a global business advantage for lengthening product lifecycles and facing future market and regulatory mandatory changes.

Forced Function

The Drug Index Safety System 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. Medications simply cannot be stocked incorrectly. This type of proven physical layer of safety is the gold standard in high-risk environments.