By Katie Wike,
Montefiore Medical Center has customized its EHR to allow for unique identification of newborns and reduce errors in the NICU.
Electronic health records (EHRs) are used successfully to track the records of patients, but what if that patient doesn’t have a name yet? In the case of newborns, identification in the electronic health record is a nightmare.
“Most hospitals in the country have a temporary name they use like BabyBoy or BabyGirl. That really increases the chances of confusing patient [charts],” Jason Adelman, MD, Patient Safety Officer (PSO) at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx told MedPage Today.
“We did a national survey of NICUs across the country. Over 300 NICUs responded, and more than 80 percent said they used BabyBoy/BabyGirl or BB/BG in their NICUs,” Adelman said. “The issue is that when babies are born in a hospital, very often parents don’t have the names ready to go the second the baby [is born], but we must put a wrist band on the child [immediately].”
iHealth Beat reports that, in order to avoid confusing newborns based on generic names in their electronic record, Montefiore implemented an identification system which uses the following data to create a unique identification:
- a number
- the mother’s first name
- the letter “s”
- the baby’s gender
Results of a study on the identification process revealed the new naming system reduced the error rate from 66.8 per 100,000 orders to 33.5 per 100,000 orders. The researchers are now submitting a grant proposal to NIH to study whether or not changing the children’s name to more distinct names will further decrease errors.
“We’re excited for the chance to share the work we’ve done so far with the pediatric community. It’s going to really help raise attention to the problem,” Adelman added.
