Two Patient Identifiers

[pippy48]

Hi Everyone,

I have been doing research for a scholarly paper that I'm working on regarding two patient identifiers, and I was wondering what type of measures your hospital uses. We use armband with patient name and ID number, and compare it to the order. I look forward to your reply. Thank you. Trisha.

[nursinger]

The residents wear ID bands, we also ask them their name, DOB and if they can remember, their SS#.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

I should also have mentioned we scan the patient's armband and the medication before administration.

I think the paper should caution that bar coding can be assistive but never substitute for the rights of medication administration we learned in nursing school.

I know of two instances wher the bar code matched and th nurs(s) checking prevented disaster.

One was the wrong dose with a matching bar code.

The other was a unit of packed cells bar coded with the current patient but all the numbers matched a discharged patient with the same name.

The two nurses checking blood saved the patient.

[mappers]

We use armband, name & patient medical record number compared to what's in the COW. But here is food for thought.

A few months ago we had a patient named Mary Sue Pearce who went by Sue. When she was registered, they put her in under someone else named Sue Peirce. (Names changed of course, I don't even remember the names.) Nurse walks in room and says are you Sue Peirce? Patient says, Yes, I'm Sue Pearce. Checks armband and it matches computer. Four days later, registration calls up to say patient registered under wrong name. Tries to blame nursing!!! Said we weren't checking the armband. Ummm, no....the armband matches what's in the computer. Then they try to get nursing to re-chart under the correct record. Our ANM fought them saying, "nope it was your mistake, you clean up the mess" and won. They had to get IT to transfer the date from one record to another.

If we had just asked the patient Name and birthdate and checked it against either armband or computer, it would have been caught immediately.

[diane227, LPN, RN]

Check the armband and verify with the MAR when giving meds. Verify name with the pt if the pt can speak and tell you. I am really hoping that we will all go to bar code scanning soon.