Decreasing Incidence of Mislabeled Specimens in the Emergency Department by Integrating Daily Safe Practices for Proper Labeling

In the winter of 2010, Newark-Wayne Community Hospital initiated its first Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP) in its emergency department. CUSP, designed to improve patient safety and culture, integrates safety practices into a unit's daily work. It encourages frontline team members to tackle the challenge of cultural change within their unit/department. It is intended to engage each team member in the department with patient safety and quality priorities identified by the team.