Safety Mandates: The FDA plans to require bar codes on all medication ordered in hospitals to reduce errors. Nurses would scan the bar code on the drug and match it with a bar code on the patient. Everything will be fine as long as the original drug order is placed appropriately in the first place. Needless to say, this will be very expensive:

The F.D.A., which regulates drug makers, not hospitals, will order the pharmaceutical companies to come up with codes identifying each drug and dosage. Whether lot numbers and expiration dates will be included is still under consideration.

The Food and Drug Administration estimated that it would cost pharmaceutical companies $50 million to put bar codes on every product and that hospitals would spend over $7 billion on scanners and computers.

Surprisingly, no one’s complaining about the costs. Not the drug companies. Not the hospitals. Expect drug costs to go up. And hospital charges, too. Or more staff layoffs.