Barcode Point-of-Care Advisory Board to Convene at The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding.

Healthcare and Aviation Industry Safety Experts Named to Multidisciplinary Advisory Board to Drive Best Practices in Medication Administration

TAMPA, Fla. -- The TerraPharma Project, LLC, a peer-to-peer patient safety advocacy organization, announced today that it will host a newly-formed barcode point-of-care (BPOC) advisory board during The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding to be held May 6-8, 2009, in Tampa, Fla. The advisory board, comprised of five distinguished experts, will identify and disseminate known best practices for hospitals using barcode verification systems at the point of care to enhance the safety and accuracy of medication administration. BPOC systems are currently used in one-quarter of U.S. hospitals to assist caregivers in verifying the five rights of medication administration (right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and right time), as well as accurately matching patients to blood products, laboratory specimens and mothers' milk.

The multidisciplinary board is composed of aviation, pharmacy, nursing and patient safety/quality experts. Its mission is to coalesce the thoughts and experiences of organizations that have pioneered BPOC technology usage for the purpose of generating guidelines that will benefit future BPOC initiatives.

"Medication administration is a complex process. Simply installing a barcoding system will not eliminate errors--it could even cause some. But now that hospitals have used BPOC systems for nearly a decade, we can clearly see what makes for effective use of this valuable technology," said Jamie Kelly, cofounder of The unSUMMIT Conference and partner of The TerraPharma Project. "The goal of the advisory board members is to begin a dialog that will identify standards of use from real-world experience that can guide other hospitals in easier, safer and more efficient adoption efforts."

The advisory board will share its recommendations with the not-for-profit National Quality Forum (NQF). NQF-endorsed voluntary consensus standards are widely viewed as the "gold standard" for measurement of healthcare quality. Additionally, The TerraPharma Project will publicize the results of the inaugural meeting through media outlets and will leverage unSUMMIT communication channels to advocate for the identified best practices.

The advisory board's charter members are:

* John Nance, JD, Safety Systems Chair. A decorated U.S. Air Force veteran and Lt. Colonel in the USAF Reserve, Nance has logged more than 13,000 hours of flight time. Well-known for his involvement in Air Force human factors flight-safety education, Nance offers deep expertise in how the healthcare industry can incorporate lessons learned by the aviation industry from plane crashes caused by human error to prevent medical errors and improve patient care. Nance is an aviation analyst for ABC World News, aviation editor for Good Morning America, an attorney, and a best-selling author. His most recent book, Why Hospitals Should Fly, was selected as the 2009 book of the year by the American College of Healthcare Executives.

* Manisha Shah, MBA, RT, Safety & Quality Chair. In her role as the director of harm prevention and patient safety at HCA, Inc., the nation's largest private hospital operator, Shah designs and deploys enterprise strategies to prevent harm to patients and implements patient safety principles across HCA. She has provided the vision and drive behind HCA's multi-facility implementation of eMAR and the barcoding initiative since 2002. She is also responsible for the HCA patient safety learning system, which gathers data through voluntary reporting. Shah, who mentors and advises division leadership and eMAR coordinators at all 160 plus HCA hospitals, was a board member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's National Patient Safety and Quality Steering committee.

* William Churchill, M.S., RPh, Pharmacy Chair. Churchill is executive director of pharmacy services at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, which is part of Partners HealthCare, a Boston-based health system. In that capacity, he has played a major role at BWH in improving the safety and efficiency of medication-administration systems and expanding the role of clinical pharmacy specialists through the use of medication-safety technology. Churchill has spoken worldwide about medication-safety technology and chairs several patient-safety committees at BWH and Partners. In 2007, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists awarded Churchill its prestigious distinguished leadership award for helping to enhance patient safety worldwide. Last year, the Massachusetts Society of Health-System Pharmacists named Churchill the 2008 Massachusetts Health-system Pharmacist of the Year.

* Stuart Levine, Pharm.D, Medication Safety Chair. As informatics specialist at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a nonprofit organization devoted entirely to medication error prevention and safe medication use, Levine primarily promotes medication safety through the safe use of electronic technologies. He serves as an in-house resource for medication safety for pediatric and neonatal patients based on his 25 years as the director of pharmacy services at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. Levine also is part of the consulting service at ISMP and assists in reviewing the medication-use process in hospitals around the country. He is a member of the HIMSS Pharmacy IT Symposium Planning Committee and has served as both member and president of the Delaware State Board of Pharmacy, as well as board member and chief operating officer of the Pediatric Pharmacy Advocacy Group.

* Tina Marie Suess, R.N., Nursing Chair. As bridge system administrator at Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, Suess has managed and overseen the implementation of her organization's barcode medication administration system. She is a certified medication observer from Auburn University and coordinates Lancaster General's Direct Observation Initiative, which leverages an observational research methodology to actively examine the medication-use system to gather valuable information for quality improvement.

Mark Neuenschwander, cofounder of The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding and partner of The TerraPharma Project, adds, "With medication errors harming tens of thousands of hospitalized patients annually, it is imperative that hospitals embrace BPOC as rapidly as possible--with an understanding of proper planning, training and usage. We hope that the knowledge brought forth by this team of experts will provide the impetus hospitals need to accelerate patient safety to a higher level."

The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding is an educational conference that facilitates peer-to-peer exchanges and offers hospitals an opportunity to evaluate BPOC systems and associated technologies. The conference agenda may be viewed at: http://www.unsummit.com/pdf/unSUMMIT2009brochure.pdf

About The TerraPharma Project LLC

The TerraPharma Project, LLC (TTP), Bellevue, Wash., is a peer-to-peer education exchange fueled by the conviction that barcode point-of-care (BPOC) technology is low-hanging fruit that delivers high returns for patient safety. Committed to promoting the adoption of BPOC in hospitals across the nation, TTP produces The unSUMMIT for Bedside Barcoding and the online pointofcareforum.com. For more information, visit http://www.unsummit.com.