Identification and Hodges' model

In health and social care the importance of correctly identifying people in your care is drummed into you from the outset. Even before staff are on the payroll or in the lecture theatre everyone knows that common sense shouts "pay attention!"

Drug administration and various other clinical interventions are safety critical:

Right patient - Wrong drug
Wrong patient - Right drug

If in additional to acute clinical scenarios we add information giving and 'social care' then once again identity is key:

Right person(s) - Wrong information
Wrong person(s) - Right information

Information unsurprisingly lies at the
heart of identification
and consequently
safety.

There are four key identifiers that we rely on and they map to Hodges' model beautifully - use them wisely....

GIVEN personal, first name	DATE OF BIRTH
FAMILY NAME	NHS number

Four key identifiers

Additional links:

Microsoft Health Common User Interface

NHS Connecting for Health

Information Standards Board for Health and Social Care

Political domain links resource