Healthcare Informatics Resources

I miss scanning patients’ armbands. The hospital where I worked in the ICU we scanned armbands as a safety measure when administering medications. It was very helpful in the ICU because most patients were sedated and unable to give the nurse their name and birth date. It was very helpful. I felt safe in checking my patient’s armband at the beginning of my shift then scanning their armband later as an identifier. At the hospital I work at now you have paper charting, paper MARs, then you go into the patient’s room and ask them to identify themselves. Many patients are unresponsive or confused and it is not a reliable check. One time I was in a male patient’s room and it was semi-private and both men were sitting up in chairs and I almost administered an IV antibiotic to the wrong patient. The patient was confused and his armband was taped to his bed so it was very unclear. I ended up going to the other patient and asking him to identify himself because I could not get a clear answer from the first patient. It turned out that the second patient was the correct patient. It made me a little tachy for a while. It was scary to think that I could have wrongly administered a medication. I want to keep my patients safe and I really miss the scanner. I felt much more comfortable with it. It also scanned the meds to approve them as well instead of relying on human eyes to misread something. You could rely on your eyes AND the scanner.

Tags: Healthcare Informatics, Healthcare Informatics Resources, Healthcare Informatics Communication, Health Care Informatics Armbands, Health Care Informatics Patient Identification ID

This entry was posted on August 20, 2009 at 5:15 am and is filed under Healthcare Informatics Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.