Health and Medical Administrative Services - Essay Example

"Health and Medical Administrative Services" is a great example of a paper on the health system. The issues chosen from the scenario are the potential for harm to the patient or medicine errors due to patient identifier policy not being followed. From the scenario above, it can be noted that the patient armbands that are supposed to be used to identify them only hung on the rails instead of the arms of the patients. The regulation that the above scenario falls in is ‘Two Patient Identifiers Standards' as established by the Joint Commission. The Joint Commission and the World Health Organization both come in to define the minimum standards that a care facility must meet when using armbands for the identification of patients. However, organizations do not encourage the use of armbands to identify patients. The standard states that in the case of an armband is used for identification, "the band must be attached to the patient/resident at all times” (The Joint Commission, 2020).
This regulation stresses that armband use is prone to errors because many are times, the caregivers tend to hang them loosely on the bedsides instead of attaching them to the rightful person. Hence, the organization discourages the use of armbands for patient identification but instead encourages the use of biometric technologies. The impact of this standard is that it will help in curbing avoidable medical errors associated with the careless handling of armbands in hospitals. The role of law in developing the healthcare regulation relates to section §164.502(d) of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule (hhs.gov, 2012). The rule limits to what extent the patient information can be available for third parties. Both the federal and state regulations agree to the fact that biometric identification programs are better than mechanical methods of the wristband. The state regulations hold that in the case of wristbands, they must be printed with barcodes to aid the identification. The deemed status will have severe implications in the organization because as things stand, it does not follow some procedures.
2. Gap analysis
When using a wristband for patient identification, the mechanism that must be in place is that the band must be printed with barcodes and attached directly to the ram of the patient. However, currently, the organization is showing some laxity in complying with the standards because the armbands are not used appropriately. Instead of keeping them in the arms of the patients, they are hung on the rails, and this does not serve the purpose which they were meant to serve. Also, we are not aware whether the bands have appropriately coded printings or barcodes which do not necessarily show all the patient details to the third party. It could be unethical if some bands indicate intricate details of the patient, which can make the patient suffer humiliation in the facility. Hence, the armbands must be printed with coding languages.
3. Recommendations
The regulatory bodies that set standards for such issues as above include, but not limited to, World Health Organization (WHO), the Joint Commission, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The first strategy that the organization must take is to ensure that all the bands are in the arms of respective patients (The Joint Commission, 2020). The nurses can go around confirming this. Also, they should not be hanged at the bedside because they may get lost or travel to a different patient causing patient misidentification and wrong medication.
To implement such a program, the organization must establish a strong communication strategy that helps all the nurses get the information about patient wristbands that are hanging. Some bands hang because the patient themselves remove them. The patients must be educated on their role and the expert explain to them that if they don’t have their bands on they may end up being poisoned with the wrong drugs. To track compliance, I would randomly go through the patient records to know if they are accurate. This is enough to tell that the wristbands are correctly used.