Towards Safe Patient Identification Practices: the Development of a Conceptual Framework

What is it about?

Patient identification errors are considered the root cause of other patient safety incidents. Despite the development, recommendation, and application of several initiatives to reduce and prevent misidentification in hospital settings, errors continue to occur. They directly impact the quality of care provided, resulting in delays in care, added costs, unnecessary injuries, misdiagnosis or wrong treatment, and other serious and irreversible types of harm and death. This study report on the development of a conceptual framework for safe practices in the area of patient identification. The proposed conceptual framework was developed based on presuppositions regarding learning health systems and the available evidence from the published systematic reviews of the effectiveness of interventions in reducing patient identification errors in hospital settings.

Featured Image

Photo by Thiébaud Faix on Unsplash

Photo by Thiébaud Faix on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The conceptual framework developed in this study may contribute to the knowledge and integrates key meaningful dimensions for patient identification safety under a single conceptual framework. It stresses the recommendations for practice, teaching, and research to promote safe patient identification systems in hospital settings.

Perspectives