Swiss Cheese Stinks: Ethics in the Age of Leading-edge Technology

The increased use of medical devices in all aspects of medicine has presented ethical challenges. Harm is rarely caused by actual negligence. The vast majority of cases involve what is known as the "Swiss cheese" model where everything happens to line up, and mistakes are made. Doctors, scientists and engineers design and implement medical devices, like tablet counters, with only good intentions.

“It’s not enough just to have caring, qualified people to keep the patient safe.” -Dr. Elaine Goodman, What a New Doctor Learned About Medical Mistakes From Her Mom’s Death

Medication errors are frequent. Drugs are often incorrectly administered because of similar sounding names, identical labels, rotating staff members, and other negligence. Plus, hospitals sometimes lack a qualified pharmacist who specializes in specific medicines. 

Advances in treatments and medications are only bound to complicate matters. Physicians must find a way to battle high patient volume, being paged all the time, working long hours, little sleep, etc. while still providing acceptable care. The solution to ongoing safety problems is using the right technology. Reduce errors performed by overworked medical staff with high-tech digital counting scales.

Torbal's tablet counters offer a perfect balance of speed and accuracy. Complete your entire prescription count in less than 20 seconds. Watch the tablet counter demo. Also, be sure to check out the counting features which include: three-step pill counting, onscreen instructions, a handheld barcode scanner, 10,000 drug database capacity, and more.

Contact us to learn more about our pill counting scales and how we can assist you in better serving your patients.