National Patient Safety Initiative Analysis

Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example

Patient identification includes physical identification by physicians and clinicians and technologies’ ability to identify a patient accurately. Patient identifiers should be unique, ubiquitous, and unchanging. Many different technological approaches, practices, and operational processes help optimize precise patient identification. However, a lack of widely accepted operational principles and drawbacks in the technologies and processes contribute to patient misidentification. This paper reviews improving the accuracy of patient identification as a national initiative to enhance patient safety.(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification

Improving the accuracy of patient identification is one of the national patient safety initiatives. Patient identification refers to precisely and appropriately matching a patient to the intended interventions and communicating the patient identity information accurately and reliably throughout the care continuum. Two interventions that can help improve patient identification accuracy are using at least two patient identifiers during care, treatment, and service provision and eliminating transfusion errors associated with patient misidentification (The Joint Commission, 2022). Patient misidentifications or wrong-patient errors are typical across all diagnosis and treatment stages. This initiative aims to reliably identify an individual as the person for whom the care, treatment, or service is intended and match the service or treatment to that individual. Commonly used identifiers include the person’s name, assigned identification number, telephone number, and other individual-specific identifiers. In the care setting, newborns and young teens are at an increased risk of misidentification due to their inability to speak and dependence on surrogates for consent. For instance, there have been cases where a newborn has been fed breastmilk from the wrong mother, increasing the risk of passing bodily fluids and pathogens. Patient misidentification is also the leading cause of medication errors and blood administration errors at the facility. A patient identification system is necessary to prevent errors and promote patient safety.   (Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Evidence

According to Riplinger et al. (2020), patient identification or wrong-patient errors impact patient care and safety, service payment, and data sharing and interoperability. When a patient’s data is wrongly matched to another’s records, patient care and safety are jeopardized, and the mistake can span across many internal and external systems and databases, including radiology, laboratory, and health information networks. These mistakes lead to probable laboratory, imaging, medication errors, and wrong-site surgeries. A duplication of errors in multiple systems can lead to physicians and clinicians missing vital information about a patient, leading to the wrong diagnosis due to, for instance, an incomplete patient history. Therefore, it is critical to optimize patient identification to improve patient safety. Many patient identification techniques, including unique identifiers and algorithms, exist worldwide, but none has resulted in a 100% match rate (Riplinger et al., 2020). The most significant challenges despite the advancement include treatment, care delivery, and patient safety errors, cost and resource considerations, and data exchange and interoperability.(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Fukami (2020) analyzes intervention efficacy to prevent patient misidentification. The study identifies patient misidentification as a critical patient safety issue. Improving the accuracy of patient identification will help reduce the risk of patient harm and improve healthcare quality. Fukami (2020) highlights drug administration, blood transfusion, sample collection, and surgical interventions as significant areas where patient misidentification occurs. Also, hand-over and other communication issues elevate the risk of wrong-patient errors, especially when multiple health care providers or personnel are involved in patient care. The study recommends a step-by-step problem-solving method to increase the accuracy of patient identification. (Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Analysis of Goal and Its Importance for Improving Patient Outcomes in Health Care

Accurate patient identification is critical to the US healthcare system to promote patient safety and quality of care. The nation is trending towards this goal by ensuring that healthcare organizations install systems that emphasize the primary responsibility of healthcare staff to check the patient’s identity and match correct patients with the intended care before administration. The nation encourages healthcare organizations and providers to use at least two identifiers, standardize patient identification approaches, offer clear protocols for identifying those that lack identification details and distinguish patients with similar names (The Joint Commission, 2015). Other interventions towards this goal include encouraging patient engagement across all stages, incorporating training and procedure for verifying patients’ identity into orientation and continued learning for healthcare personnel, and educating patients on the need and relevance of precise patient identification. Using these interventions to increase the accuracy of patient identification is crucial to improving patient outcomes in health care. Accurate patient identification reduces medication errors, transfusion errors, and wrong-patient procedures and eliminates the discharge of infants to the wrong families, improving patient outcomes. (Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Conclusion

Accurate patient identification is an essential component of promoting patient safety. The goal aims to improve the accuracy of patient identification to ensure appropriate treatment, care, and other services are matched to the intended patient. Many research studies provided ample Evidence associating accurate patient identification to improved patient safety. Improving the accuracy of patient identification will help reduce the risk of patient harm and improve healthcare quality. The nation has focused on safety systems development and installation and proper protocol development in healthcare organizations to aid accurate patient identification.(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

References

Fukami, T., Uemura, M., Terai, M., Umemura, T., Maeda, M., Ichikawa, M., Sawai, N., Kitano, F., & Nagao, Y. (2020). Intervention efficacy for eliminating patient misidentification using step-by-step problem-solving procedures to improve patient safety. Nagoya journal of medical science, 82(2), 315–321. https://doi.org/10.18999/nagjms.82.2.315(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Riplinger, L., Piera-Jiménez, J., & Dooling, J. P. (2020). Patient Identification Techniques – Approaches, Implications, and Findings. Yearbook of medical informatics, 29(1), 81–86. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1701984(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

The Joint Commission. (2015). Patient Identification. WHO Collaborating Center for Patient Safety Solutions. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/integrated-health-services-(ihs)/psf/patient-safety-solutions/ps-solution2-patient-identification.pdf(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

The Joint Commission. (2022). National Patient Safety Goals Effective January 2022 for the Critical Access Hospital Program. https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/tjc/documents/standards/national-patient-safety-goals/2022/npsg_chapter_cah_jan2022.pdf(Improving the Accuracy of Patient Identification-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/