The Color of Privacy
OK, this is news to me, although many of you may already be familiar with it—color-coded wristbands. Different colors alert caregivers to certain patient conditions. It seems a number of hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities routinely use these, but there is a safety concern with confusing which color denotes which condition. To help the situation, the New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA) has joined with the NJ Department of Health and Senior Services to standardize the colors used across the state.
The need for this program was underscored in April when a survey of 75 New Jersey health care facilities identified a variety of colors and means of communicating patient risk factors. In acute care settings alone, 10 different colors alerted caregivers of 19 different risk factors.
"If a patient came to the emergency room from a neighboring long-term care facility wearing a red wristband, there was no guarantee that the two institutions were identifying the same risk,” said Mary Ditri, NJHA’s director of professional practice, who led the project. In one case, a patient wearing a yellow band went into cardiac arrest. The nurse, who practices in two different facilities, got confused and thought yellow meant do not resuscitate (DNR) when in fact, at that facility, it meant a restricted limb.
The initiative is being unveiled to facilities statewide as voluntary guidelines and standardizes the meaning of the five wristband colors—red stands for allergy, yellow for fall risk, green for latex allergy, purple for do no resuscitate, and pink for restricted limb.
It makes great sense to me, but what about multiple conditions? What if I’m allergic to sulfa and latex, I have the potential to fall and I have a DNR on file? Do I really wear red, yellow, green and purple wristbands? And what about the privacy issue? Will other patients or visitors know what the different colors mean? Will my DNR or my latex allergy be broadcast to those who don’t need to know? Am I splitting hairs and being overly protective of my protected health information? What do you think?