Hospitals and Patients:

Partners in Patient Safety

Connecticut hospitals are committed to partnering with consumers to improve health and safety. Hospitals engage in many activities to keep patients safe, but there are many things you can do to help.

Wallet Medication Card

CHA and the CHREF Patient Safety Organization are working with partners including the Connecticut Department of Public Health, Qualidigm, and the Qualidigm PSO to promote awareness of patient safety strategies and empower patients to be more active partners in their care. As the first step in this statewide effort to engage patients in safety, we have developed a wallet medication card in order to assist consumers in maintaining an accurate record of the medicines they take and other important information. It is critical that your healthcare providers have complete information about your medical history and current medications, and we encourage all consumers to use the wallet medication card or a similar tool to track this information. The wallet medication card and instructions are available in two formats by clicking on the links below. The first format (PDF) is for consumers who will print the card and complete it by hand. The second format (Word) is for consumers who would like to download the card as a Microsoft Word document and save it to their own computer for filling out electronically before printing.

Click here for Wallet Medication Card (PDF version).

Click here for Wallet Medication Card (Word version).

Click here for an easy-print version of this webpage.

Additional Patient Safety Strategies for Consumers

CHA has prepared the following summary of strategies that patients can use to partner with hospitals on safety areas that have been identified as National Patient Safety Goals (for more information about Connecticut hospitals' compliance with the National Patient Safety Goals, click here.)

How Can I Help with Correct Patient Identification?

Take an active role in your care by:

• Carefully reviewing the spelling of your name, age, address, and other information and correcting any errors at the time you register at the hospital.

• Making sure the nurse, doctor, or other healthcare worker checks your wristband and asks your name before taking any tests or giving you any medications or treatments.

• Trying not to get frustrated when doctors and nurses repeat the same questions, such as asking your name; this is an important double check to confirm that your information is correct.

• Telling a doctor, nurse, or other healthcare worker if you think he or she has confused you with someone else. For example, if the medication that you are given or procedure you are about to have is not what you were expecting, speak up and ask the provider to confirm that it is correct.

How Can I Help with Communication?

Take an active role in your care by:

• Asking the person doing the test how long it will take for results to be reported to your doctor.

• Asking your doctor to review the test results with you and to explain what that means for your future care.

• Always confirming test results with your doctor, even if you are told that no call from the doctor means everything is fine.

How Can I Help with Medication Safety?

Take an active role in your care by:

• Knowing what medications you take and why you take them.

• Asking questions if you don't recognize a medication.

• Telling the doctor or nurse about any allergies you have, or any bad reactions you have had to medications in the past, before taking a new medication.

• Learning both the brand name and generic name for each medication you take.

• Keeping a current written list of all the medication you take and bringing it with you whenever you go to the hospital or any other healthcare provider to help you remember to tell the hospital or other provider about all of your medicines. Click here for a wallet card to help you track your medications.

• If there is a medication that you took at home that you have not been given in the hospital, asking your doctor or nurse if you should still be taking that medication.

• Reviewing your list of medications with the doctor or nurse before you leave the hospital to make sure you understand which medicines to take and how often. You may also want to involve a family member or friend in that discussion so they can help you remember which medications to take.

• After you leave the hospital, calling your doctor if you have any questions about which medication you should be taking. Do not assume that you should take all of the same medication that you took before you went into the hospital.

How Can I Help with IV Safety?

Sometimes in the hospital, you will be given liquid or liquid medicines through a thin tube attached to a bag of fluid. This is called an IV.

• If you are given an IV, ask the nurse how long it should take for the liquid to "run out."

• Tell the nurse if your IV doesn't seem to be working properly.

How Can I Help Reduce Infections?

• Thorough hand washing is an important way to reduce the spread of infections anywhere, at home, at work, in the community, and in healthcare facilities. For information on the best techniques for hand washing, as well as a list of situations in which you should always wash your hands click here for the federal Centers for Disease Control's Clean Hands Campaign information. Always wash your hands before touching a hospital patient that you are visiting and don't visit anyone in the hospital while you are ill.

• If you are a hospital patient and have a family member or friend who is ill, ask that person not to visit you in the hospital until they are well.

• Many hospitals have sinks or hand washing gel dispensers outside of patient rooms so you may not always see your healthcare personnel clean their hands. If you have not seen your doctor, nurse, or other healthcare worker wash their hands, however, don't be afraid to ask them if they have washed their hands before allowing them to touch you.

• Before you leave the hospital, if you have any breaks in your skin, such as from an injury or where you had surgery, make sure you understand how you are supposed to care for the area once you get home. Your doctor or nurse will give you specific instructions about when you can get the area wet, whether you should keep it covered, and how to keep it clean. If you have not received these instructions, ask before you leave the hospital. It is very important that you follow these instructions carefully because it is easy for bacteria that cause infections to get into your body through a break in your skin.

How Can I Reduce the Risk of Falling?

In the hospital, take an active role in your care by:

• Telling your nurse at the time you are admitted to the hospital if you have difficulty walking or have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.

• Always calling your nurse if the nurse or doctor tells you that you should ask for help when getting out of bed. You are not disturbing the nurses -- keeping you safe is an important part of the work they do.

• Even if you have not been told to ask for help when getting up, any time you feel weak, dizzy, or sleepy, don't get out of bed without calling the nurse or nurse's assistant for help.

For other strategies on fall prevention in the community, click here for information from the Connecticut Collaboration for Fall Prevention.

How Can I Help My Doctor Perform the Correct Procedure?

At the time your surgery/procedure is scheduled:

• Carefully read your surgery/procedure consent form and ask questions if you don't understand something. You may want to bring a trusted family member or friend with you who also can listen and ask questions.

At the hospital:

• Ask the hospital personnel to confirm what kind of surgery/procedure you are having and on what body part the surgery/procedure is to be performed. If the hospital personnel give a different answer than you were expecting, ask to speak with the doctor before the procedure starts to confirm that you are having the correct procedure.

• Participate in marking your own surgical site if the hospital asks you to do so and you are confident that you know the site of your surgery.

• If hospital staff ask you to verify the procedure that is being done or the location of the procedure and you don't know, tell the hospital staff that you don't know. Don't guess or just agree with the hospital staff if you actually don't know the exact procedure or location of the procedure.

Prepared by Connecticut Hospital Association and CHREF Patient Safety Organization.