CLEVELAND-Patients at the Cleveland Clinic starting on Monday won't see red. Instead, they'll see white, black, royal blue, hunter green, and purple. The hospital has color-coded its staffers so that patients, in principle, will know who is who.
Patients will be issued color charts to help them differentiate nurses from respiratory therapists and attending physicians from residents and fellows.
The administration of the 1,000-bed institution says the initiative is in response to patient-satisfaction surveys. A frequent complaint was that patients didn't know the status of staffers who entered their rooms.
Action Points
- This article describes an initiative by the Cleveland Clinic to better identify staff positions. Discuss with patients the types of hospital personnel that will visit patient rooms.
During a typical hospital stay, the average patient is visited by dozens of Cleveland Clinic staffers, said Claire Young, RN.. MBA, the chief nursing officer. She sys that most identify themselves to patients, but it can get confusing.
For instance, a transporter-the clinic term for aides that spend their days pushing hospital carts and wheel chairs--may be mistaken for a nurse. "A transporter could come into a room and a patient may ask for help-help that the transporter is not capable of giving," she said. "Later that patient may complain to that 'a nurse' didn't help when asked to do so."
Now all a patient has to do is consult the color chart and see that the purple-clad person is a transporter, not a nurse at all.
In fact, the chart will allow patients to identify the specific job of anyone who enters a room-including the doctors. It will now be possible, says Young, to "instantly identify the personnel in the room-attending physicians, residents, nurse and techs-in emergency situations." This can help staffers as well as patients, says Young.
Traditionally, Cleveland Clinic physicians wear unadulterated white lab coats. Now all 1,200 attendings will be wearing lab coats that are embroidered with black thread. On the right front side of the coat, the Cleveland Clinic logo will be embroidered as will the clinic department. On the opposite side the doctor's name will be embroidered in black script.
All 900 physicians-in-training-from first year residents to post doctoral fellows--will wear lab coats embroidered with royal blue thread. Their names will be in block letter style.
Nurses, meanwhile, will have a retro look, and all will wear white. All 1,800 nurses have been supplied with six new, white uniform pieces-with dresses counting as two pieces just as scrubs (top and bottom) are two pieces.
The Clinic's four hundred "patient care technicians," a group that includes a wide variety of nursing aides and techs, will all wear distinctive hunter green.
The new uniforms cost $150,000. The clinic bought its own embroidery machine.