Within the entire health-care industry, lack of identification policies result in testing errors, medication errors, wrong person procedures, discharge of newborns to wrong families, transfusion errors, etc. Studies conducted in the past have revealed that these medical errors cost nearly $20 billion a year, resulting in the death of approximately 100,000 people every year. Fortunately, with the help of automated identification software, interventions and proper implementation of patient identification policies, the risk of patient misidentification can be significantly reduced.
Patient Misidentification
Identifying patients correctly serves as the backbone of the entire healthcare sector. Without it, pharmacists would be handing out prescriptions to the wrong person, physiotherapists would not be able to recall what happened a few months ago during a patient’s knee surgery, and the hospital’s billing office would be mailing patient bills to the wrong address. In short, identity verification is how these institutions know who their patients are.
From patients going through a bad experience or facing safety issues, to experiencing an operational nightmare, the negative impacts of misidentification can be profound. Other concerning issues can include patients receiving an incorrect medicine or treatment, missed follow-ups with doctors, delayed appointments and so on. In order to tackle this, identifying the root causes of patient misidentification is necessary.
– Root Causes
According to the Patient Misidentification Report 2016, some of the causes found in the U.S for patient misidentification are listed below:
- Incorrect patient identification during registration
- Queries resulting in multiple patient records, leading to an inability to find relevant and correct patient records when needed
- Waste of time while searching for the correct patient records resulting in service providers making errors due to time pressures
- Insufficient awareness and training of employees
- Patients submitting false documents to avail medical treatment
- Human error
Forming an Action Plan
Traditional record-keeping strategies and manual processes are no longer sufficient for record maintenance due to massive amounts of patient data being piled up. With patient records being spread across numerous departments consisting of different systems, patient identifiers need to focus on modern technology and draft new strategies. Health-care organisations should ensure accurate patient identification by implementing Know Your Patient procedures, such as identity checks and age verification. This procedure can also be implemented using KYP screening software in the following steps:
- Patients are required to show themselves along with a government-issued identity document to a camera or webcam
- AI-based KYP screening system accurately extracts information from the ID document and matches it with the patients physical attributes for verification. In this step, fake documents are also identified
- Facial recognition is performed through liveness detection and 3D depth perception
- Patient’s age can also be verified through their DoB, to avoid minors from receiving unauthorised prescriptions
- If the verification is successful and the patient is who they claim to be, the results are shown on the screen and also updated in the back-office within a matter of seconds
Another strategy that can be implemented is standardization of the approach being used for patient identification within a health-care facility. For example, using a white ID band to mark specific information related to the patient or standardising the use of biometric technology for the same purpose. Health-care institutions should also provide clear protocols for staff members to question laboratory results in case they do not appear consistent with a patient’s medical history.
Where feasible, implementation of automated systems should also be considered to reduce error frequency. These automated systems can be used in the health-care sector for various purposes, such as electronic order entry, biometric facial recognition, fingerprint or iris scans on entry and exit and barcoding. On the other hand, once patients are registered, they should be educated about their right to data privacy and made aware in a positive manner about the significance of correct patient identification through automated software instead of dealing with a staff member for the same purpose.
Key Takeaways
In short, the best strategies for preventing patient misidentification in the health-care sector include the following:
- Drafting the correct policy
- Identification checks when registering patients
- Standardize the approach being used by all patient identifiers
- Ensure the patient is verified each time they enter a facility for some procedure
- Patients should also be involved in the process of identity verification
