On October 10, 2008 SCHA’s Board of Trustees adopted a resolution from the SCHA’s Quality Council on color-coded patient wrist band alerts. The Quality Council and the SCHA’s Patient Wrist Band Task Force agreed that statewide and national standardization of these visual cues is an appropriate risk reduction strategy for our facilities that choose to use such alerts.

PLEASE NOTE: Neither the American Hospital Association nor SCHA is recommending that these alerts be implemented since there are significant issues each hospital should consider when reviewing the usefulness of these tools.  SCHA is recommending that members that do use these alerts follow the national consensus, as outlined in the AHA Quality Advisory dated September 4, 2008 (http://www.aha.org/aha/advisory/2008/080904-quality-adv.pdf). A toolkit for SCHA members is under development.

For more information, please see the resolution or contact Kimberly Hubbard ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Karen Reeves ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

Resolution Adopted by SCHA Board of Trustees on October 10, 2008
Color-coded Patient Wrist Band Alerts

While the SCHA Quality Council and the SCHA Wristband Task Force recognize that it is highly debatable whether or not healthcare facilities should use color-coded wrist bands as a visual alert, a national, standardized approach would help to minimize the potential for errors.  The SCHA Quality Council recommends that South Carolina adopt the American Hospital Association‘s support for a national consensus when these bands are used, as described in the AHA Quality Advisory dated September 4, 2008. On October 10, 2008, the SCHA Board of Trustees adopted the following resolution:

For those South Carolina facilities choosing to use color-coded wristbands, the national consensus of the following alerts and their corresponding standardized colors should be used in South Carolina:

Red=Allergy
Yellow=Fall Risk
Purple=Do Not Resuscitate

To reduce confusion, only three colors should be used, the alert message should be pre-printed or embossed (not hand written), patients should be requested to remove “social cause” wristbands, and patient risks should be verified during hand-offs in care.  

The Quality Council and Wrist Band Task Force recognize that pink is frequently used for “restricted extremity” and green is used for “latex allergy;” however, since the American Hospital Association only recommends the above three colors, the SCHA Board is asked to take action only on the same three colors.