There are more medicines out there than ever before, and it could be easy to get them mixed up.  St. Joseph's Candler hospital has brought new technology to their nursing staff to help them keep patient's pills in order.

We're told the machine has had great feedback from patients and NEWS 3’s Tristan Tully spoke with one nurse who uses the Bedside Medication Verification daily and says it's made a huge difference in his work.

They're called operation guardian, the Bedside Medication Verification, or BMV's.  They are mobile computers chocked full of patients information including their medicines, making it easier for nurses like Bradley Fehrle to keep you safe, "The BMV is something that has come along that has really kind of pushed our hands in a way to help make things, you know, that extra bit of safety that you know, we really need to keep our hospitals and our patients safe."

Each nurse is assigned their own BMV and use them every time a patient is administered medicine.  They scan both the patient's band and the medicine, stopping the nurse if the two don't match.

Bradley Fehrle, Registered Staff Nurse, St. Josephs/Candler:
"You go into the room with your BMV, your Guardian Unit and so you scan and it's instantly going to come up that this medication is not on the patient's MAR - Medication Administration Record, and right there, that's your red flag that's what's caught you and that's what's saved the patient."

When Bradley goes into a patient’s room with the BMV, he tells us some of the patients have pretty interesting reactions, "The look on their faces is so funny.  They have this look of like I think they're impressed and they're a little confused at the same time and you explain it to them and they're really - I've gotten a lot of responses that they're just shocked at how technical we are right here at Candler Hospital."

Bradley also tells us that the BMV's help when doctors have questions about a patient’s medications.  Instead of shifting through a stack of papers, now, he has all of the information at the click of a button.