We are seeing an increasing population of dementia patients that we are having to care for long term as we cannot find placement post their acute care stay. Many of these patients remove their arm bands as soon as staff puts them on(or leg bands which we have tried).

Standard practice is to scan the arm band to launch the patient's medical record; ask the patient their name and date of birth to verify the correct pt's chart prior to scanning the medications for administration. We have no arm band, and some are very confused so cannot (or will not) accurately respond to name/DOB.

What other options have you seen used to assure correct patient prior to medication administration?

thx
Joyce L