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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA)

Training

BCMA Awareness for Area Teams

This awareness training, held in January 2013, provided an overview of the Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 Measure, and the electronic Medication Administration Records (eMAR). It also kicked off the project for implementation of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) Health Information Technology (HIT) solution within the IHS hospitals. Each affected IHS Area formed an Area BCMA Cross-disciplinary Team to include:

  • Nurse Consultant
  • Pharmacy Consultant
  • Clinical Applications Coordinator
  • Meaningful Use Coordinator
  • Information Technology Professional
  • Quality Manager

The need for administrative support from the Area Director level was also emphasized.

Because the final MU Stage 2 measures had not yet been released, discussions included statistics on all IHS hospitals with an emphasis on which hospitals would likely require BCMA implementation and IHS efforts to convince CMS to limit the requirement to larger hospitals.

BCMA Configuration & Test

The purpose of this training activity is to educate participants on how to properly install, configure, and test the BCMA software and associated RPMS setup and prepare the site for the next activity.

This BCMA Training and Deployment Activity is conducted onsite at a facility as part of the BCMA setup process and is combined with BCMA End User, Super User, & Coordinator Training and Go-Live. Participation in this activity is strictly for:

  • Eligible Hospital (EH) BCMA & eMAR Team Members from hospitals required to implement BCMA
  • Members of the VA-IHS BCMA Cross Functional Team (CFT)

For Training Classes and Schedules, see RPMS Training.

BCMA End User, Super User, & Coordinator Training and Go-Live

The purpose of this BCMA training activity is to train Nursing and Pharmacy personnel on processes and issues related to medication administration using BCMA. Hands-on, discipline-specific (Pharmacists, Nurses, and BCMA Coordinators) classroom training is provided onsite and broadcasted interactively to participants' offsite. Participants are encouraged to attend the training for a discipline other than their own to illustrate the collaborative effort involved to implement and effectively use the BCMA v3.0 application. The "Go-Live" portion of this activity provides immediate on-site support of individual users as they begin to use the hardware and software and immediate response to questions. Target audience includes:

  • The BCMA Training & Implementation Team
  • BCMA End Users
  • BCMA Super Users
  • BCMA Coordinators

To check for upcoming training sessions, go to the RPMS training page and search for BCMA End User, Super User, & Coordinator Training and Go-Live.

BCMA Drug File Optimization - Six Week Series - Cohort

The purpose of this training is to assist Hospitals within the Indian Health Care System prepare their RPMS Inpatient Suite of Pharmacy Applications for BCMA in order to ensure:

  • Patient medication safety
  • efficiency
  • accuracy

The course also teaches how to correctly set up the pharmacy files, inpatient wards, and inpatient users to prepare the site for BCMA implementation.

The training is a four hour session, one day a week for six weeks. Although primarily for Pharmacy Informaticists, BCMA Coordinators and Clinical Applications Coordinators may also attend.

View the material presented for the BCMA Drug File Optimization.

Self-Paced Online BCMA Recorded Training

These training sessions recorded by the VA offer in-depth training for pharmacist and BCMA end users.