If a Total System Approach is What is Best in Regards to Patient Safety, where can Wristbands Help?

Patient Safety

The National Patient Safety Committee has come out with a follow up to their 1999 report on Patient Safety.  While they note that progress has been made in the arena of Patient Safety in the last 15 years, there is a general consensus that not quite enough progress has occurred and this needs to be accelerated.  They highlight 8 main recommendations when it comes to addressing and ensuring patient safety, listed below.

  1. Ensure that leaders establish and sustain a safety culture:Culture change can’t take a backseat to other safety activities, according to the report.
  2. Create centralized and coordinated oversight of patient safety:This requires the involvement, coordination, and oversight of national governing bodies and other safety organizations.
  3. Create a common set of safety metrics that reflect meaningful outcomes: Standardized measures are necessaryacross the care continuum and needed to identify and measure risks and hazards proactively
  4. Increase funding for research in patient safety and implementationin order to fully understand safety hazards and the best way to prevent them.
  5. Address safety across the entire care continuum:Healthcare organizations need better tools, processes, and structures to deliver care safely and to evaluate the safety of care in various settings, the report noted.
  6. Support the healthcare workforce: Leaders must address workforce safety, morale, and wellness so that healthcare workers can provide safe care to patients.
  7. Partner with patients and families for the safest care: At its core, the report said, patient engagement is about the free flow of information to and from the patient.
  8. Ensure that technology is safe and optimized to improve patient safety:Leaders must take actions to minimize the unintended consequences of health IT, the report said.

What steps is your organization taking to meet each one of these critical goals?  Healthcare is a complex system of checks and balances.  While correct patient identification can assist in each of these points it is most prevalent in point number 3….

Create a common set of safety metrics that reflect meaningful outcomes: Standardized measures are necessary across the care continuum and needed to identify and measure risks and hazards proactively”

Proper identification and proper use of alert notifications are the safety metrics at the core of providing proper care to each individual patient by minimizing errors. Endur ID recognizes the important of Patient Safety and works steadfastly in our resolve to assist in this manner, through production and implementation of new identification products and by continuously acting as consultants for our Healthcare customers.

Endur ID wristband media is completely customizable, with the ability to add virtually any information needed for patient care.  Are your patients currently wearing different bands for each applicable alert?  Endur ID can minimize risk by adding the alert code/color directly to the main identification band.  Streamlining the process, coupled with adding easy to read standard alert colors and codes, are just some of the many ways that Endur ID works with you towards achieving the 8 main areas of patient safety as defined by the National Patient Safety Committee.  For more information please visit our website at www.endurid.com.

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