Bedside Bar Coding Puts Patient Safety First

By Ken Congdon

Patient safety is one of the main pillars of care at Memorial Hermann. Bedside patient ID, medication administration, and specimen collection are central to this initiative.

"Safety first.” This famous adage is often quoted, but not all healthcare providers actually take it to heart. In fact, in this era of reimbursement cuts, technology adoption, and structural reform, losing sight of this tenet has become all too easy. This is unfortunate because improving patient care and safety are the main reasons most of these changes are being implemented in the first place.

Memorial Hermann is one health system that hasn’t lost any of its focus on patient safety. In fact, setting the gold standard in this area drives just about every initiative undertaken by the provider. Memorial Hermann has a long history of excellence when it comes to patient safety. The fact that the health system won the NQF (National Quality Forum) National Quality Healthcare Award back in 2009 is proof. This award acknowledges outstanding quality and safety improvements in healthcare, and once a provider receives the honor, it can never win it again.