Changi General Hospital Singapore (CGH)’s Closed Loop Medication Management (CLMM) system with QR code uses IT to improve patient safety.

At key points in the medication process, QR codes are used instead of conventional barcodes to match and verify the doctors’ prescriptions, drugs and patient data.

Eastern Health Alliance Group CEO, Mr TK Udairam, said: “The CLMM system with QR code enables us to deliver safer care through the administration of the right drugs and right dosage to the right patient at the right time.

“It has also substantially increased productivity and staff satisfaction by improving inventory management and enabling our healthcare professionals such as nurses more time for direct patient care”

Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), the Health Ministry’s IT arm, CEO, Dr Chong Yoke Sin, said: “CGH is one of the first in Southeast Asia to use QR code technology for medication management. QR codes can contain more information, and thus provide more checks for the medication process”.

QR codes can hold several hundred times more data than conventional barcodes. They can also be scanned from any angle, and be printed on very narrow spaces.

The CLMM system relieves nurses of administrative work in the medication process, improving their productivity.

Pharmacy staff are able to view real-time drug consumption levels, and thus stock only what is needed.

With the system, CGH expects to reduce by half potential errors in medicine supply, and achieve 30 per cent cost savings in drug inventory.

Data from the system also provides quality information for clinical analytics to improve patient outcomes.

In the CLMM system, doctors enter prescriptions directly into the electronic medical records system. Pharmacists review the prescriptions online, and then send them to robot packaging machines.

The robots automatically dispense the unit dose medication with QR code. This eliminates human errors in drug dispensing.

At the wards, before serving medicine to the patient, the nurse scans the QR code on the patient’s wristband and on the drugs to ensure they match.