USE OF TWO PATIENT IDENTIFIERS IN THE PROVISION OF PATIENT CARE

To encourage the use of two unique identifiers during the provision of patient care.

Rationale

Errors caused by dispensing or administering medications to the wrong patient are largely preventable. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices reports that dispensing a correctly prepared prescription to the wrong patient in community pharmacies is the most common complaint reported to the National Consumer Medication Errors Reporting Program, with approximately 25% of events resulting in patient ingestion of the wrong medication. The Joint Commission (TJC) recognizes that wrong-patient errors occur in all stages of diagnosis and treatment in hospitals and health systems. Both organizations call for a standard approach to verify a patient’s identity using at least two patient identifiers.

TJC defines a patient identifier as "Information directly associated with an individual that reliably identifies the individual as the person for whom the service or treatment is intended. Acceptable identifiers may be the individual's name, an assigned identification number, telephone number, date of birth, or other person-specific identifier." ASHP supports the consistent use of two patient identifiers in the dispensing and administration of medications during the provision of care in all care settings. ASHP also believes that bar code medication administration is important for verification of medication use, however, should not be a replacement for verifying a patient’s identity with two patient identifiers.