July 14, 2006

Safety first: Using patient identifiers

An important component of patient safety is to identify patients accurately and match the patient's identity with the correct treatment or service. The fast-paced nature of medical care can sometimes cause challenging situations for clinicians to correctly identify patients when providing care. This is why the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has made patient identification the first of its National Patient Safety Goals.

The MGH has implemented policies to help clinicians with the patient identification process in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Two patient identifiers must be used before any treatment or service is provided to the patient to ensure the appropriate care is given. The same two identifiers must be verified in two locations before treatment begins. For example, if a nurse is giving a patient medication, he or she would match the name and medical record number on the patient's wristband to the name and medical record number on the medication administration record.

For inpatient units, the two identifiers must be the patient's name and medical record number. In outpatient areas, the identifiers should be two of the following: patient's name, medical record number, social security number, date of birth or facial recognition. Outpatient staff should make sure that the two identifiers they use are consistent with what their practice is using and should have a third identifier as back-up.

For more information about patient identifiers or the upcoming JCAHO survey, visit the hospital's JCAHO website at www.massgeneral.org/jcaho.