The wicked problem of patient misidentification : how could the technological revolution help address patient safety?

As nurses, we are at the frontline of health care delivery in all settings; this means we will most likely witness or be involved in clinical practice error due to misidentification at some stage over our careers (Hwang & Park 2017). It's quite possible that during our nursing career we will administer the wrong medication to the wrong patient. It may be likely that a patient misidentification error has occurred in our workplace today. As much as we recognise the critical importance and safety mechanism of asking the patient their name, their date of birth and checking their identification band, whilst maintaining the six rights of medication administration, identification mistakes still happen for a multitude of complex and multifactorial reasons. These may include the chaotic, time‐pressured nature of a busy healthcare environment; a patient's functional ability and capacity; the accuracy and clarity of information presented on ID bands along with the ease of access to their physical location on patients (commonly secured on a patient's wrist or ankle).