Patient verification - Research Paper Example

Alternatively, the patient can physically present a document of identification like a driver’s license or social security card. These credentials or documents locate a stored biometric template usually linked to it from a previous enrollment. After provision of the credential or document, the patient scans his or her biometric. The captured template gets compared against the stored template which has been located with the documents. After this, what follows is the confirmation or denial of the patient’s claimed identity by the biometric scan which gets supported by verbal confirmation to an identification name.

The main area where patient misidentification may occur is during blood transfusions, surgical interventions and drug administration. Patient verification occurs when a healthcare worker can confirm that the identity documents given by the patient match those on the patient’s identity documents. Statistics Recent statistics show that there have been forty percent cases of patient misidentification. In the entire healthcare industry, lack of proper patient verification results in the wrong person procedures, discharge of infants to the wrong families, medication errors, testing errors and also blood transfusion errors.

According to the United States Patient Safety Agency, there were more than 100 cases of patient misidentification between 2000 and 2003. . This can be attributed to new technologies like bar coding that have improved the process of patient verification. Such interventions have proved to be quite cost effective in the healthcare industry. Implications Since patient misidentification has been noted to be the cause of many root errors, various measures have been taken to control the problem. The Joint Commission of the United States made improvement of patient identification accuracy its focus in the National Patient Safety Goals introduced in 2003 (Marie, 2009).

This still continues to be a requirement for accreditation. The National Priorities Partnership and National database of nursing quality indicators show that patient misidentification poses as one of the most serious risks to the safety of patients. It cuts across the entire healthcare practice and, therefore, is an issue of major concern. The implication of patient misidentification is that thousands of people get injured by the health system the seek help. This increases the need for limiting working hours for health care members whereby an increased number of workers care for each patient (WHO, 2007).

The National Patient Safety Agency decided to incorporate the NHS number in order to reduce and possibly mitigate the risks of patient misidentification. Enhancing quality There are various ways that enhance quality concerning patient verification. This can get done by ensuring that all aspects of the management of patient verification comply with the existing recommendations from the National Safety Agency. There must be clear procedures and standards for healthcare workers involved in patient verification (Medscape, 2013).

These standards provide a framework for the required work ethics and, therefore, mitigate the risk of