Dubai: A new high-tech chest of drawers to help minimise human errors made in the dispensation of medicine to patients by hospital staff, will be introduced in the Middle East soon, it was announced at the Arab Health forum on Wednesday.

Humanscale, the international manufacturer of ergonomic products, has teamed up with Becton, Dickinson and Company, a forerunner in mobile technology to create a smart medication drawer to mitigate human error in medicine dispensation to a patient. A one-year study in France found the drawer reduced errors by 53 per cent.

“There is a possibility that human error creeps into the system of dispensation where a patient could have a duplication of a dose or wrong medication dispensed at the wrong time or a wrong dose administered,” said a spokesperson for Humanscale.

When a patient needs to be administered a dose, a bar code facilitates the opening of the drawer and the bar code also provides the nurse a full history of the patient.