Development and implementation of a consistent policy for patient identification and specimen collection

Background: At Community Medical Center (CMC) disparities were identified in existing policies that could lead to failures in patient identification and specimen labeling. In 2013, CMC undertook a Healthcare Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (HFMEA) to review the practices for specimen identification and labeling that existed throughout various departments. A unified hospital policy was created that complied with the existing regulations of TJC, CAP, CLIA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).;Methods: The purpose of this project was to determine if a consistent policy on specimen collection would result in decreased mislabeling events. Data on mislabeled specimens were collected for twelve months after this policy was implemented and compared to data collected in the previous twelve-month period. The data were analyzed for statistical significance by means of a two-tailed t-test, linear regression analysis and a slopes t-test using a 95% confidence level.;Results and Conclusion: The t-test returned a P-value of 0.68 while the regression analysis returned R coefficients of 0.03 and 0.09 respectively. Analysis of the slopes of the regression lines by a t-test was 0.99; far above the upper threshold of 0.05. The failure of this project to decrease errors in patient identification has spawned other efforts at CMC to decrease specimen-labeling errors.