October 5, 2007

Mercy’s Color-Coded Uniforms Enhance Professionalism, Patient Satisfaction

Hospitalized patients may feel a bit anxious about the tremendous amount of activity within the hospital during their stay. Adding to the uneasiness, many different healthcare providers come and go from their hospital room and it quickly becomes difficult to know who is a nurse, therapist or certified nursing assistant.

Mercy Medical Center—Sioux City has taken some of the guesswork out of recognizing the role and area of expertise of clinical caregivers after making a successful transition to a color-coded uniform and dress policy.

Mercy’s patient-centered initiative is supported by a growing body of healthcare research that indicates patients are more satisfied with their overall care when they know the professional status and role of each care provider entering their hospital room.

Now at Siouxland’s leading hospital, registered nurses wear navy blue and/or white. Certified nursing assistants (CNAs) are dressed in ceil blue, and the hospital’s respiratory therapist wear black. Lab technologists wear ceil blue with a white lab coat.

Mercy’s noninvasive cardiology staff wears khaki colored uniforms. EKG technicians are wearing teal. Pharmacy techs now wear Caribbean blue.

Staff members in the Mercy Family Birth Center all wear maroon uniforms while their counterparts in the hospital’s therapy services department wear business dress clothing.

Two more clinical areas at the medical center will also be making a transition to specific uniforms.

“Our new policy promotes professionalism while it also helps patients and families distinguish registered nurses and other caregivers,” said Tracy Larson, one of the nursing staff leaders at Mercy who helped orchestrate transition to the new uniform policy. “Patients can now more easily recognize the nurse in charge of their care.”

“We also issued new identification badges with large ‘RN’ watermarks to better distinguish nurses at bedside and from across the room,” Larson added.

Nurses and other healthcare professionals, who were actively involved in formulating the new dress code at Mercy, have been very positive about the new uniform policy since implementation began about 10 months ago, according to Larson.

Patients and their family members seem to really like the new dress code, too.
“Mercy is dedicated to continually improving quality of care and patient safety,” said Scott Wells, vice president of Patient Care Services. “As we see it, quality care starts with professionalism and professional attire.”

“For our patients and their families, color-coded attire has helped build greater trust, communication and confidence with their caregivers. As a result, the patient’s experience at Mercy has been improved all the way around.”

Mercy continues to develop color charts and other communication pieces to help patients and families understand the role of each of the many professionals attending to their care.