Med Center Health Safety Snapshot – January

Your Quick Look into Safety at Med Center Health

At Med Center Health, safety and high reliability are more than just goals. They are our promise to every person who comes through our doors. As we begin the new year, this Safety Snapshot highlights a foundational Joint Commission National Performance Goal that touches every role, every department, and every patient encounter.

Right Patient, Right Care

“Ensuring that the correct patient receives the correct care at the correct time is foundational to patient safety and the responsibility of everyone who works in healthcare.” –The Joint Commission

This National Performance Goal addresses long-standing patient safety risks and focuses on reliably identifying patients and ensuring that care and services are correctly matched to the individual.

What This Means for Daily Practice

  • Correct patient identification using at least two identifiers before providing care, treatment, or services
    • Examples: patient name and date of birth – never a room number
  • Verification of correct timing for medications, treatments, procedures, tests, and critical results
  • Safe hand-off communication so essential information is shared during transitions of care
    • Examples: bedside shift report, verifying medications that are running
  • Preprocedural safety checks including verification, site marking, and time-outs
  • Recognition and response to changes in a patient’s condition
  • Effective patient flow to support timely, safe care
  • Pausing and speaking up if something doesn’t match

These processes help prevent common safety events such as medication errors, wrong-site procedures, diagnostic delays, patient falls, infections, equipment failures, and communication breakdowns.

Right Patient. Right Care. Right Time. Every time.

Together, we make safety a reality. Thank you for being an essential part of our culture of safety!

Reliably yours,

Denise Kaetzel, MHA, MSN, RN, CENP – Executive Director of Quality and Patient Experience

Kaitlin Banasiewicz, PhD, MSN, RN – Director of Patient Safety and Clinical Research

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