No OOPS!
Posted on 01/02/2008 10:04:40 AM PST by Ben Mugged
Methods to identify a patient with a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order are incredibly varied across hospitals, ranging from written documentation practices to the use of color-coded wristbands. According to a new study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, a national effort to standardize color-coded wristbands, likely around a few specific indications (e.g., DNR status, allergy, fall risk, etc.), would remove current practice variations and the associated potential for errors.
There are currently no standards of color choice for hospitals using color-coded wristbands, and each hospital has a different set of colors for different indications. This lack of standardization creates the potential for errors. For example, some hospitals have used yellow to signify “Do Not Resuscitate,” leading to several near-misses with patients wearing yellow Lance Armstrong “Livestrong” bracelets. If a standard color choice existed for DNR orders, the potential for errors with either personal patient wristbands or those used by hospitals would be averted.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
No OOPS!
If I were guessing, I would imagine there were probably a few misses they don't want to talk about.
Why not put that information on a medic alert bracelet, as is done for allergies? I’ve never received a logical answer.
I recall reading in the Seattle Times a year or so ago about the increasing popularity of older people getting their DNR request tattood to their chest. Really makes it hard to miss.
Heh heh heh
Why can’t the doctors/nurses/orderlies just, yaknow, READ the damn bacelet?
The State will determine who lives and who dies. They will be picking up the tab and deciding who gets the money for his illness and who doesn’t.
IF they are going to color code a bracelet to mean “just let me die”, let it be BLACK. Not Yellow.
I joked to an er doctor that I would do that. He told me it would be ignored.
They are more annoying than those damn ribbons people wear.
Black Paws Wristband - Black wristband decorated with debossed paw prints. Makes a great spirit or animal remembrance bracelet. Crafts’N’Scraps is donating a portion of the sale to The MaxFund no-kill animal shelter. Adult size.
We visited them in NYC over the holidays and the girls took off to get some Chinese takeout so he and I had a few moments to spend time getting to know each other. I noticed that he had these two colored rubber bracelets around his left wrist. I thought they were just some big rubber bands he was saving until he mentioned that one band was a Lance Armstrong 'Live Strong' bracelet and the other one was for breast cancer research.
People tell me that I curl my top lip over my bottom lip when I try to keep from busting out laughing. I think I said something like 'Oh, that's nice' and changed the subject.
They can, and apparently do. However, in a situation where emergency resuscitation is needed, stopping and checking the bracelet takes time. Maybe only a matter of 10 seconds or so. Of course that could still be the difference between life and death. Or maybe the difference between full recovery and permanent brain damage.
I'm sure the DNR is also on the patient's chart as well, but the hospital staff don't have time to waste checking a chart, or even trying to read what is written on a bracelet. They need to act immediately.
Take your stupid Livestrong bracelet off when you are admitted to the hospital, and if a friend or relative brings you one while you are in the hospital, don't put it on.
So there doesn’t have to be a document written, signed, and witnessed? Just having the right/wrong bracelet would affect your care, and the hospital doesn’t check to see if it is really the patient’s wishes?
How easy it would be for someone to slip a certain color bracelet on a nonresponsive patient to speed up their departure. Might make a good movie plot, but pretty dangerous in real life.
Those pink “Breast Cancer Awareness” ribbons/bracelets/whatever really work! Why, until I saw a ribbon yesterday, I had no idea such a disease as “breast cancer” even existed, or that absolutely no medical research has ever been done into the causes and treatments. Now, my awareness has been improved, let me tell you.
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