NOVEMBER 20238In My OpinionSean Tucker, MLS(ASCP)CM MBA, Director of Laboratory Services, North Kansas City HospitalByThe Joint Commission (TJC) National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG.01.01.01) for hospitals emphasizes the importance of improving the accuracy of patient identification as their top priority. Required elements include using two patient identifiers when administering medications, transfusing blood, collecting blood samples and other specimens for clinical testing, and when providing treatments or procedures. Health Information Management (HIM) systems have developed numerous technologies to improve Positive Patient Identification (PPID) using barcode scanning at the bedside. This typically queries the system for patient demographic information that matches the barcode scanned on the patient armband. Barcode scanning produces high-reliability identification to reduce human error in high-risk scenarios. North Kansas City Hospital (NKCH) is an acute care facility with 451 licensed beds and 550 physicians representing 49 medical specialties north of the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri. Nestled down next to Cerner Oracle's previous World Headquarters, the hospital was the company's second client. Discussions around using the Cerner technology to improve patient safety called CareAware Connect began in 2012 with the implementation taking almost a decade. The hospital identified several goals for the project including enhancing user experience, reducing alert fatigue, improving Point of Care efficiency with barcode scanning, and unifying physician and clinician communication. In 2023, North Kansas City Hospital began an implementation rollout of the technology starting with the Phlebotomy Management and CareAware Patient Flow applications for capacity management. Both programs REDUCING PATIENT IDENTIFICATION ERRORS THROUGH IMPLEMENTATION OF POSITIVE PATIENT ID AT THE BEDSIDE
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