This guide contains all design guidelines (mandatory and recommended) accompanied by example diagrams to illustrate their application. Although offered as a quick reference to already familiar guidance, you may also find this guide useful for exploring areas of guidance that are new to you.

Note
The diagrams, mock screenshots and icons in this document are purely illustrative. The examples given are taken from the UK National Health Service.

Remember that this guide is not a replacement for the definitive version which includes further usage examples (showing both correct and incorrect application) and details the rationale behind the guidance.

Purpose of this Guidance

The term 'patient banner' refers to the area of the clinical application's user interface that contains patient identification information used to match records with patients or any of their associated artefacts, such as samples, letters, specimens, wristbands and X-rays.

Although there are no accurate figures on the frequency or cost of mismatching errors, they form a significant part of the whole range of errors in healthcare. A clear and prominent indicator of which patient record is currently in view, using the core patient identifiers, is an important component in reducing errors of failed or mismatched patient identification.

This version of the Patient Banner guide is based on the full guidance document Design Guide Entry - Patient Banner (v4.0.0.0) - PDF