Background/introduction
Despite of accurateness and strict obedience to standard operating procedures patient misidentification can occur in any field of public health care worldwide [1].
Particularly in radiology,
especially in imaging modalities using ionizing radiation,
patient misidentification can not only misdiagnose a life-threatening disease [1,2],
but also lead to substantial radiation exposure.
Therefore,
the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health recently enacted a regulation,
making it mandatory for all radiology departments to report unintended radiation exposure and take measures to avoid those incidents [3].
Initially our imaging...
Description of activity and work performed
In a pilot project with an industrial partner we designed an innovative solution based on wristbands and a dedicated server/software infrastructure,
which requires scanning the case number on the patient’s wristband for study registration.
Manual selection of the patient’s data thus becomes redundant reducing wrong patient and wrong examination errors.
After transmitting the case number to the control panel,
the patient is automatically displayed in the system and unblocked for image registration.
However,
the specific case number needs to be delivered in a DICOM tag,...
Conclusion and recommendations
Our countrywide first of its kind solution using patient identification wristbands and dedicated server/software infrastructure we can enhance the accuracy of patient registration and contribute to more safe and effective diagnostic and therapeutic services [4].
In addition,
automatically assigning the CT images to the correct patient,
it is possible to achieve significantly higher process effieciency.
Personal/organisational information
Dr.
Alexander Lutoschkin,
MD
Cantonal Hospital Baden,
Institute of Radiology,
Switzerland
Im Ergel 1
5404 Baden
Switzerland
Phone: +41 56 486 38 39
E-Mail:
[email protected]
References
1.
Dhatt GS et al.; Patient safety: patient identification wristband errors.; Clin Chem Lab Med.
2011 May;49(5):927-9
2.
Rubio EI et al.; Time-Out: It's Radiology's Turn--Incidence of Wrong-Patient or Wrong-Study Errors; AJR Am J Roentgenol.
2015 Nov;205(5):941-6
3.
Strahlenschutzverordnung (StSV) 814.501 Stand 05.06.2018,
4.
Kapitel 8.
Abschnitt Artikel 50
4.
Gray JE et al.; Patient misidentification in the neonatal intensive care unit: quantification of risk. Pediatrics.
2006 Jan;117(1):e43-7