Authors: (including presenting author): :
FONG MY, HO WY, CHAN LN, YEE YT, LEE WH, LAM MY, CHAN WY, CHAN PF
Affiliation: :
Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care (FM&PHC), Kowloon East Cluster (KEC)
Keyword 2: :
Patient Identification
Introduction: :
Patient identification is the first and crucial step in provision of health care service. Inaccurate patient identification may not just affect treatment outcomes of patients but can also result in serious medical consequences. As a health care provider, it is our responsibility to ensure patients’ safety and maintain an effective risk control when providing patient care. Patient identification had been one of the risk register items in KEC FM&PHC since 2024. A continuous quality improvement (CQI) Program was conducted on patient identification including training workshops for staff to align our practice with an aim to maintain safe and standard care for patients. Moreover, annual audit on patient identification and monthly surprise check for staff compliance to ensure consistency of the good practice.
Objectives: :
1) To enhance patient safety by ensuring accurate and unequivocal identification to prevent medical incidents. 2) To increase staff adherence to established procedures and improve their compliance to the best practice 3) To develop a safety culture in work place.
Methodology: :
Two kinds of workshops, including “Training workshop on patient identification” and “Train-the-trainer workshops on patient identification for clerical staff” were conducted from August 2024 to June 2025. The target participants of two workshops were newly joined nurses and patient care assistants (PCAs), junior clerks and senior clerical staff respectively. Tailor-made training materials including presentation PowerPoint, teaching videos, case scenario discussion and role play were conducted in these two workshops. An outcome evaluation was conducted after workshops. For the “Train-the-trainer workshop on patient identification for clerical staff”, senior clerical staff of all KEC FMCs were trained. They would be responsible to hold an in-house training for their subordinates with tailor made training material within 4 months. Besides, annual patient identification audit and monthly surprise check would be performed in all clinics.
Result & Outcome: :
1) A total of 31 nurses and PCAs, 26 clerks were trained, 9 senior clerical staff were trained as trainers. 14 sessions of training workshops had been conducted by our new trainers at all KEC FMCs subsequently. Up till 30th September 2025, a total of 70 (95.5%) clerical staff had completed the training. 2) The feedbacks from participants were positive. 95% and 89% agreed that the workshop was useful and it could align and reinforce their patient identification process respectively. 100% of participants were satisfied with the workshops and would recommend to other colleagues. 3) Both the compliance rates of audit and surprise check could achieve 100%.
