Issues in patient identification during COVID-19.
Tracy Jones-Darnell
PMID 35196282WHAT IT FOUND
Both dementia residents in a nursing home were given wrong ID bands during COVID-19 quarantine.
They received each other’s care, families were told the wrong resident had died, and a body was sent for cremation under the other resident’s name.
Key findings
01During transfer, CL and TH received new ID bands, and the paper believes the wrong bands were given.
02The paper says CL and TH were treated erroneously for days, receiving the other’s medications and treatments.
03CL’s body was taken to the funeral home for preparation for cremation because staff thought it was TH’s body.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
It describes CL and TH, not a trial, audit, or survey, so it cannot show how common misidentification is or how well the recommended checks work. The recommendations are practice advice from the authors, not tested outcomes. The article does not report who applied the ID bands, when the error was first noticed, or what root cause analysis found. The families’ experiences are narrated in the article, not measured with a systematic method.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict-of-interest statement is included in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that using two identifiers will prevent misidentification. This article reports CL and TH and gives advice, not a tested outcome.