For a moment, forget the incredible strain that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed upon the American healthcare system. Even before the abrupt and enormous spike in demand for emergency and long-term care, hospitals in the US were staring down an imposing set of challenges. As the American population ages, the healthcare sector has not been able to retain a commensurate number of registered nurses to care for a segment of the population that requires more and more healthcare. In addition to personnel shortages, hospitals suffer from decreased revenue, as uninsured ER patients expend hospital resources while private insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid linger in reimbursing, an instance of cashflow problems begetting more cashflow problems. All the while, pharmaceuticals and medical supplies have not gotten any cheaper—quite the opposite, in fact.
The result of this is that while the country’s hospitals have undoubtedly worked harder than ever, they’ll need to work smarter, too. Hospital administrators aren’t just looking for life hacks, they’re looking for life overhauls—fundamental reimaginations of their organizational strategies. Fortunately, hospitals can turn to a helpful consultant by the name of Roy G. Biv. Expanding the implementation of color coding is one of the best ways hospitals can improve care and workflow. Using color in new applications may be the solution hospitals seek in streamlining the often infamously inefficient bureaucracy and record-keeping of the medical field. Let’s look at a few examples.
Admissions and Discharges
Some of the most important paperwork involved in a hospital stay comes at the beginning and end. Seeking a more efficient workflow in hospitals begins with opening and winding down cases. By making critical information as immediately accessible as possible to care providers throughout the hospital, personnel can intelligently and properly allocate their resources to a newly admitted patient. On the other end, discharging a patient at the end of a hospital stay is an easier process when all personnel involved can quickly understand reports and data.
Here is a case study of color-coding in action. In 2011, doctors and administrators at Connecticut’s Yale-New Haven Hospital devised a system for color-coding the likelihood of a timely discharge. Using the red-yellow-green model that should be familiar to anyone who has ever waited at a traffic light, the new system augmented electronic medical records by indicating the probability of an admitted patient experiencing a next-day discharge. Patients who were color-coded as green in this respect were those who were very likely to be discharged the next day, while those coded as yellow were only possibly slated for a quick discharge. Meanwhile, patients with red on their record were in it for the long haul, relatively speaking, unlikely to be discharged within the next 24 hours. By intuitively clarifying the expected trajectories of admittees to their nurses and other care providers, Yale-New Haven could better coordinate its workflow and keep its patients on track to be released on time. Upon the implementation of the “traffic light” discharge indication, the hospital was 15 percent more efficient at promptly releasing patients the hospital expected to discharge within a day’s time. This number may seem small at first, but when it comes to a resource as finite as hospital beds, turning over beds and making those resources more readily available to new admittees is crucial, especially when hospitals run near or at capacity.
Color-Coded Wristbands
The identification wristband is a universal sign of hospital admission. Some patients may even choose to keep theirs as souvenirs of sorts. While hospitals have been using wristbands for some time, they can further optimize them by using color coding to more quickly send important messages regarding a patient’s status. Traditionally, red wristbands immediately indicate a general allergy, while green wristbands more specifically indicate an allergy to latex, a condition that is highly pertinent given the prevalence of latex supplies in hospitals. Yellow wristbands signify that the wearer is at an elevated risk of falling and will require additional assistance or oversight. Purple wristbands denote a “Do not resuscitate,” or DNR, status, which means that the patient or their family would prefer to decline end-of-life care they see as unnecessarily protractive. As more and more hospitals adopt this color coding for wristbands, this may well become a universal standard.
Color-Coded Labeling
To this point, we’ve discussed making small improvements to workplace efficiency within the complicated bureaucratic machinery of the modern hospital. When it comes to proper labeling of medications and instruments, misidentification is not just five percent more inefficient or expensive—it could be dangerous or deadly. While color-coding medication labels will not necessarily magnify the fine print so inherent in labeling, big and bold colored labels can immediately communicate big-picture information, such as the presence of a common allergen, or the need to keep an item refrigerated.
Anesthesiologists, working with some of the most sensitive medications in a hospital, have benefited from a color-coded labeling system. The American Society for Testing and Materials assigned colors to different classes of anesthetic drugs. Opiates and synthetic opioids use blue labels on their syringes, while anticholinergics use bright green. Tranquilizers are color-coded as orange, muscle relaxants bear red labels, and drugs for inducing anesthesia before surgery are labeled with yellow. This color-coding has been effective in making sure patients receive only the proper anesthetic drugs. Hospitals can apply these principles throughout the labeling process.
Bring More Color To Your Hospital with Chromalabel Products
You can see now, and colorfully so, the ways in which hospitals can improve care and workflow using color. Bright and readily apparent colors have high semiotic value, signifying clear and memorable messages to hospital employees who internalize the color codes administrators implement. It’s simply a matter of having the material for implementation. For colored dots, tape, and labels across a full spectrum of colors, from primaries to fluorescents, explore Chromalabel’s wide selection of varied and vivid color-coding products. Start devising even more ways to bring efficient color-coding into your hospital or medical facility. We’ve heard all the jokes about doctors’ questionable penmanship—allow your colors to speak for you, instead.
