Glenna Sue Kinnick, RN - Additional Information

Yesterday, I published a report on cousin Glenna

Today, we have a copy of the article, and a photo, from VAguard

VAnguard, Department of Veterans Affairs (2003)
March/April 2003  March/April 2003  March/April 2003   2003
Title: The Legacy of VA Women Pioneers. (p.16)

Sue Kinnick

Using scanners and bar codes to reduce medication mix-ups helped launch VA into the leading edge of patient safety. The core idea for the project can be traced back to 1992 when Sue Kinnick, a registered nurse at the Topeka, Kan., VA Medical Center, saw a Hertz rental car employee use a hand-held scanner to read a code in the trunk of the car she was returning. If Hertz can track cars nationwide this way, she thought, couldn’t VA track patients’ medications in the same way?

She shared the idea with supervisors at the Topeka VAMC, planting the seed for what would become VA’s Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) program.

Kinnick died in 1997 after a prolonged battle with breast cancer, but not before working with a VA team developing a system to implement her idea in a 1994 pilot project at the Topeka VAMC. The pilot project was so successful it was extended throughout the hospital and later within the Eastern Kansas Health Care System. Ultimately, it was adopted VA-wide. Now, it appears the rest of the nation may follow suit. Under a March 13, 2003, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal, hospitals nationwide would be asked to adopt a medication bar code scanning system to help reduce medical errors.

News of the FDA proposal brings a smile to the faces of those who knew Kinnick. Colleagues say she
worked on the project right up to her death and was concerned it might never extend beyond Topeka. Her last words were to “keep fighting to keep the project going,” according to pharmacist Chris Tucker, national BCMA project manager at the Topeka VAMC, in a VAnguard interview.


Families are Forever!  ;-)