Health Quest, the not-for-profit parent corporation for three New York hospitals, will receive a $5 million grant from the Dyson Foundation to expand and upgrade the IT at all three facilities, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports.
Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Putnam Hospital Center in Carmel, N.Y.; and Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, N.Y., will expand their prescription drug bar coding technology, enhance communications between physicians and nurses, and install tracking devices on new hospital technology equipment.
Since Vassar Brothers installed bar coding technology in November 2005, the system has stopped nurses from administering a drug 3,413 times because of a potential error, including 501 times where the error would have created adverse effects, according to a prior Journal report.
The grant also will add new wireless communication devices, made by Vocera Communications, to allow nurses to contact physicians and patients to contact nurses at any time.
Health Quest plans to spend an additional $70 million during the next five years to continue the IT expansion, the Journal reports (Weingarten, Poughkeepsie Journal, 2/1).