On-demand: Right Place, Wrong Patient: Prescriptions for Avoiding Patient ID Errors

Program Date/Time: Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. CT

Safe patient care starts with delivering the correct care to the correct patient. Yet, the risk of wrong-patient errors is ever-present for the multitude of patient encounters occurring daily in healthcare settings. Many patient identification mistakes are realized before care is provided, but reports submitted to ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization illustrate that others do impact the patient, sometimes with potentially fatal consequences.

Given that positive patient identification is fundamental to safe care, the Joint Commission has made accurate patient identification one of its top National Patient Safety Goals since 2003 when the first set of goals went into effect. Additionally, the National Quality Forum lists wrong-patient mistakes as serious reportable events and also considers patient identification as a high-priority area for measuring health information technology (IT) safety.

This program will address events reported to ECRI Institute PSO and strategies for prevention from their report Deep Dive: Patient Identification, including solutions related to leadership, technology, and process standardization.

At the end of this session, the participant should be able to:

1. Pinpoint identification errors that have caused patients to seek legal action against hospitals and/or physicians and staff.
2. Assess patient safety concerns that continue to present challenges for the healthcare system.
3. Leverage lessons learned to prevent reoccurrence of adverse events.
4. Employ strategies ranging from standardization, technology, and leadership that can help reduce identification errors in your organization.