Incidents resulting from wrong patient, wrong
procedure, wrong site and the use of wrong implants are often
devastating to the patient, their family and to the staff
involved.
In November 2004, the Patient Identification
- Correct Patient, Correct Procedure and Correct Site Model
Policy was released and widely disseminated to NSW health
facilities.
In 2007, the policy was reviewed and amended to address an
increasing number of incidents notified in non-surgical areas.
Statewide specialist working groups were established to represent
surgical services/rural health, radiology, nuclear medicine,
radiation therapy and oral health to develop the new Correct
Patient, Correct Procedure and Correct Site policy
directive PD2007_079.
Safety toolkits for radiologists, dentists and radiation
therapists were distributed to NSW heatlh facilities in December
November 2007.
In 2008, a new work program is planned around patient
identification in collaboration with the Australian Commission
for Safety and Quality in Health Care. There will be three
areas of work:
- Standardising patient identification bands
- Developing patient identification best practice models
- Investigating the implementation of technological solutions
to address patient misidentification
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