A surcial equipment supplier standing in the OR
Vendor Chris Grubb from ConMed Canada helping in the OR.
Credit
Matthew Manor

A new group of people is about to start sporting photo ID around Kingston General Hospital. As of July 1, all of our vendors will also be required to wear badges when they are in the hospital - joining our staff, physicians, learners and volunteers in the practice.

"Vendors are an important group for KGH as they help support our patient care by providing many essential products and services," says Kellie Kitchen, Program Operational Director for the Surgical, Perioperative and Anesthesia program (SPA). "Having them wear ID will bring them in line with everyone else who works at KGH."

The ID requirement is part of our new vendor credentialing system. It was introduced in March for the OR department and Cardiac Cath Lab and is now being expanded to include all areas of the hospital. The Canadian company running the service is called Vendorlink and its system requires all vendors to meet a set of requirements to enter KGH, such as signing off on all hospital policies.

Once they are registered, they can then stop at one of our vendor registration kiosks to sign in and print a photo ID badge to wear at all times at chest level. At the moment, we have two kiosks in action, one near the main lobby on Kidd 1 and another just off the Watkins lobby. Four more kiosks will be installed at convenient locations soon.

"Along with their name and photo, the new temporary badges also include key information, such as who they work for, the area they are accessing, and at what time their appointment is," says Kitchen. "This information will help our staff, as well as our patients and families, as they will be able to see who the person is in their area and why they are there."

The new system will also track which vendors are coming into the hospital to do business and will help KGH make sure they aren't wandering into areas where they may be interrupting staff delivering care. If staff encounter a vendor without an ID badge on, they should feel comfortable approaching them and redirecting them to security for assistance.

KGH is the first large academic acute-care hospital in Ontario to have such a thorough system in place. To make sure it doesn't interfere with any emergency patient care though, there will also be a number of Urgent Guest Passes available at our Security department or at the OR reception desk. These passes will be handed out, for example, when an essential external care team needs to come into KGH, or when a piece of equipment needs an urgent service call.