“Accurate patient identification is fundamental to the provision of safe health care services. Failure to correctly identify a patient and correctly match that information to an intended clinical intervention has been found to be a common error and persistent and regular threat to patient safety in modern healthcare systems in Australia and around the world. In conjunction with the Patient Safety Centre, Radiology Departments across the State are implementing the 3Cs for Radiology.” (Radiology Support – A Clinical and Statewide Service, Newsletter Nov 2008 – Queensland Health)
The 3Cs, utilises a checklist and a 4 step procedure in order to check and ensure the Correct Patient, Correct Procedure and Correct Side or Site. By checking and cross checking; Patient Identification, Procedure, Consent, Side/Site, Patient Data and Side Markers, Queensland Health is hoping to drastically reduce the number of incidents previously experienced.
The RBWH Nuclear Medicine Department and Queensland P.E.T Service have also implemented the 3Cs with their own stickers to help battle this ongoing dilmema. The stickers adopted include other checks relevant to our practice in addition to the 3Cs Radiology methodology. These include indentification of Correct Radiopharmaceutical, Correct Weight and Adjusted Activity, as a result of differing procedures and patients, especially paediatrics.
From the introduction of the 3Cs, the Nuclear Medicine Department and Queensland PET Service, are hoping to see a decrease in the number of incidents of mal and misadministration of both radiopharmaceuticals and CT exposures.