Two Patient Identifiers

Improve the accuracy of patient identification. The recommendation is for all healthcare providers to institute a policy of using at least two patient identifiers when providing care, treatment, and services. This goal has two objectives, one to verify the individual as the person for whom the service or treatment for and to match the service or treatment to that individual.

HIPAA requires nurses and nursing students to keep patients’ medical records confidential at all time. For instance, I used computer to review patient’s diagnosis, I made sure that I signed off the computer after using it. I also made sure that all the information I brought home with me did not include patient’s name and other information that identify patient identity.

Goal 1: Identify your patients correctly. Using two patient identifiers ensures that you provide the right care to your patients.

This can be accomplished by implementing a monthly handwashing initiative on the unit that would consist of completing five anonymous evaluations a month. Staff can enter their names into a drawing on the unit, winners will receive a prize for their participation. The increase in consistent handwashing between patients will reduce mortality and morbidity rates, reduce length of stay, reduce infection rates therefore increasing reimbursement for the hospital.

In 2003, The Joint Commission made one of their first goals to improve the accuracy of identifying patients to reduce or eliminate patient identification errors. This continues to be an accreditation requirement. Their recommendations to do this are to use at least two patient identifiers when administering medications, and when providing treatments or procedures. Acceptable identifiers may be the individual’s name, an assigned identification number, telephone number, or other person-specific identifier. Patient room number or physical location may not be used as an appropriate identifier. Healthcare provides should re-identify the patient with each encounter, each medication pass, and each procedure. There have been procedures and protocols throughout the country have been put into place to make the care provided to patients safer. Another element of this requirement is that all containers should be labeled in the patients presences after using the patient identifiers

Hand washing is a must on persons that come in contact with such in-patients in the hospital.

My patient?s name is John T, age 41 was admitted to Bournewood Hospital in Brookline, MA. on September 16, 2015. He was severely depressed about his past and he started having suicidal ideals. John grew up with a mother, father and sister in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They didn't have much money and his father was the only one paying bills while his mother was a housewife. John explained that living with his family was very uncomfortable. His father was a very mean and angry man; no one got along with him and everyone feared him. Being Italian, the meal must be plated once the husband got home. With that said, one day his father got mad at his mother about not having dinner on the table on time; things turned for the

Hand hygiene is a general term that refers to any action of hand cleaning. This include disinfecting agent such as alcohol or soap and water. Hand Hygiene ought to be directed by healthcare professionals before seeing patients, after contact with organic liquids, before intrusive techniques, and in the wake of expelling gloves (Burns, Bradley, Weiner, 2012). The WHO offers a slight variety by suggesting five key moments when human services specialists ought to practice hand cleanliness: before patient contact, before an aseptic errand, after natural liquid presentation hazard, after patient contact, and after contact with patient environment. Intercessions included expanding sink or liquor based arrangement accessibility, instruction, and

One of the commonest modes of transmission for infection is our hands. As care assistants, our hands come into contact with many possible infectious agents such as body excretions and secretions for example blood, urine, faeces, vomit and sputum. If good hand hygiene isn’t practiced, micro-organisms will be passed from one individual to another. General cleanliness, including general, environmental, equipment and materials reduce the sources of infection within the care home.

I have chosen the Hospital National Patient Safety Goals. One goal is improve the accuracy of patient identification. The Joint Commission wants hospitals to use at least two patient identifiers when providing care, treatment, and services. I believe that the person, who is checking in the patient, needs to be made aware of the importance of this process. One way would be to request two pieces of personal identification. Fraud is happening everywhere and requesting two pieces of identification might make this less likely to happen. Every person that comes in contact with the patient needs to check their identification bracelet with the medical record, orders and prescriptions. The HIM professional manages the master patient index and must

Patient's identifiers are any alphanumeric code used to uniquely identify a patient within a health register or a health record system. Examples are hospital patient identifier, departmental patient identifier, NHS number, and HPI. According to HIPAA there are three acceptable ways to de-identify patient data. The first is the "safe harbor" option, in which all 18 identifiers are removed. The second is the "statistical" option, in which a retained statistician determine which of the 18 identifiers can be maintained without creating greater than very small risk that data could be re-identified. The third is the "limited data set" technique, in which the organization removes 16 identifiers and protects what remains with special security precautions.

During my shift, I encountered patient ID challenge related to the major difference between the picture of patients on the e-MAR portal and the actual patient face. This problem was more pronounced when two patients are in the same room and the computer picture does not resemble any of those in the room. I have to use additional ID tools such as asking a patient his/her name and seeking help from CNAs. The latter is the case when the patient has an issue with memory or has impaired communication due to many reasons. In one instance I entered a room with two patients and called out the name of the patient. He said ‘Yes, I am.” Then I lead an inquiry of where on his body the last medication was injected and the patient responded to “yes” to

Hand hygiene is everybody’s job, including the patients. Linda Pearson (2006) refers to AL Damouk et al (2004) who suggests that inviting patients to become partners in their care maybe an appropriate response to reports of the rising incidence of healthcare associated infections and difficulties with

This paper will address infection control measures performed by nurses: hand hygiene, assessing a patients risk for infection, educating the client on proper techniques to avoid infection, and maintaining sterile equipment. One of the simplest infection control measures that can be done by nurses and everyone who enters a hospital is hand hygiene.

In the healthcare industry, several modern patient identification and patient matching systems have been introduced. Most of these implement patient identification by their first, middle and last names. They also use Social security number and other similar national identifiers. These methods may not work for many developing and underdeveloped countries where patient identification is a challenge with highly redundant and interchangeable first and last names of the patient, this is aggravated by the absence of a national identification system. In order to make the patient identification more efficient, Muzima, an interface of OpenMRS (Open source medical records system) introduced an additional identifier, fingerprint, through a module to the system. Ordinary and Time Petri nets are used to analyze this module. Chapter 1 introduces Muzima fingerprint module and describes the workflow of this interface followed by the related work, importance and applications of Petri nets. Chapter 2 introduces Ordinary and Time Petri nets using examples. Chapter 3 discusses about the mathematical modeling of Muzima Fingerprint module using Petri nets. Chapter 4 explains the qualitative and quantitative analysis done on the Muzima fingerprint module. Chapter 5 discusses about the programming and simulation done to prove the theoretical results obtained. Chapter 6 provides the summary of each chapter, conclusion and future work for the thesis.