New York: Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid has threatened to sue staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles if they don't introduce a bar-code system to prevent medical mishaps.

The actor's twin babies were last year mistakenly given a near-fatal overdose of blood thinner Heparin at the hospital. Quaid, who acted in "The Day After Tomorrow", insists the mishap could have been avoided if there was a better system of marking medicines, reports hollywood.com.

California regulators have already fined hospital bosses $25,000 after concluding that the failure of staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to follow their own procedures resulted in incorrect doses of the drug being administered to Quaid's infants and other children.

The actor has revealed he may also take legal action if hospital chiefs don't act to improve patient safety.

Quaid said: "We want them to do the right thing. We're still waiting, although time is running short for us."

He added: "They have a barcode system in every checkout stand of every supermarket in the country, so how could it be so complicated?"