Patient/Resident Identifiers

[barbaraanne72]

Hello all nurses....!!!!

I work in a long term care residential unit for intellectually disabled residents and right now in need of some global advice....

We are trying to create and maintain a much needed home like environment , polar opposite to the institutional facility like environment that many of us would be familiar with to date.

One thing I'm looking at is resident identifiers. We are mindful of international standards ( JCIA etc and the need for 2 types)- currently the most popular seems to be photographic and wristband examples. Photographic is acceptable as one however as we are trying to get away from 'labeling' the residents we are not inclined to go for wristbands of any type. In the end of the day the facility is their home and not 'an institution'. Id be really grateful if anyone can give me some ideas of novel types of identifiers as we are all a bit stumped here for a number two example....

Waiting in anticipation for some great ideas.... ?

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

In the home I supervised we used a photo and if the consumer was verbal we would ask them their name! We never used writs bands.

Hppy

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

Realizing it's their home-

Do they have any kind of ID badge? I only ask because I float into a day-hab setting a few times a month and I have to give medication. They may or may not be able to tell me their name/birthdate. I rely on an independent identifier not tied to staff. If you have very steady nursing care it may not matter. If you have drop-in nurses or subs, it's challenging for us to do the six (or however many) rights.