The issues of positive patient identification in hospitals and the use of color-coding to identify patient allergies, fall risks, etc. has now become a topic of daytime television.
We were recently contacted by
The Doctors, a CBS syndicated daytime television show. It’s a program that features 4 doctors from different specialties: pediatrics, ob/gyn, reconstructive surgery, and ER. They come together to provide viewers with information on the latest medical breakthroughs, procedures and practices, in addition to discussing news-breaking and topical issues that affect healthcare consumers.
The show also features on-set medical procedures, either directly in front of the studio audience or in its backstage examining room, in addition to off-site “house calls.”
The show was interested in doing a segment on patient safety in hospitals, highlighting the issues of color-coding wristbands, which I’ve discussed earlier
here. They also wanted to discuss how bar coding was being used to prevent medication errors. They contacted General Data to help them with the segment.
We were more than happy to help, and we provided background information, facts, figures and other information relating to how hospitals are using color-coding and bar code technologies for patient identification. We also supplied a number of our
Personal ID hospital patient wristbands for them to use on the segment as visual examples of color-coding and bar code identification.
The segment is tentatively scheduled to air on February 2nd. You can check their web site,
www.thedoctorstv.com, for local listings. I will also post the segment on this blog when it becomes available.
Have the issues of patient safety and patient identification in hospitals become “mainstream?” Is today’s informed healthcare consumer so aware of the potential of patient identification errors that its now a subject to be discussed on daytime television?
What impact does all of this have on hospitals that do not currently use bar coding for patient identification and medication verification, or do not have specific policies in place for color-coding?
Stay tuned…..