The State and Trends of Barcode, RFID, Biometric and Pharmacy Automation Technologies in US Hospitals.

The standard of safe medication practice requires strict observance of the five rights of medication administration: the right patient, drug, time, dose, and route. Despite adherence to these guidelines, medication errors remain a public health concern that has generated health policies and hospital processes that leverage automation and computerization to reduce these errors. Bar code, RFID, biometrics and pharmacy automation technologies have been demonstrated in literature to decrease the incidence of medication errors by minimizing human factors involved in the process.