The N.Y. Times writes about how hospitals have standardized patient warning wristbands. Now, red wristbands will denote an allergy risk, yellow will denote a fall risk, and so on. This should be the same at all hospitals, reducing the need to re-train nurses and other hospital staff who move between hospitals.
“The drive [to standardize hopsital bracelets] was spurred, in part, by a notorious 2005 Pennsylvania case in which a patient nearly died because a nurse used a yellow band thinking it meant “restricted extremity” (don’t draw blood from that arm), as it did at another hospital where the nurse sometimes worked, when at this hospital it meant D.N.R. [do not resuscitate]“
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Standardization is the way to go. And starting small is the way to do it. You’re right, if we just get this one thing standardized, see the benefits, report them silly, then maybe one more thing (drug labels, quality measures, etc.) will be looked at and then another…the incremental approach has a lot of merit. Just look at google.
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