Patient Safety & Security

You will meet with many healthcare workers during your stay. We require that all physicians and employees wear their ID badges so you can recognize who is taking care of you.

Here are a few things that you can do to help make your stay with us as safe and secure as possible:

• Tell your doctors and nurses as much as you can about your medical history. Let them know about any allergies to food or medicine you may have.
• Tell them about any medication you take including over-the-counter medicine, eye drops, herbs and vitamin supplements.
• Ask questions about your diagnoses, newly ordered medications and treatments.
• Call for help with walking if you are unsteady on your feet.
• Ask your doctor about receiving flu and pneumonia vaccines.
• Items such as eyeglasses, dentures and hearing aids require special care. Please do not leave these items on your meal tray, in drinking cups, or wrapped in tissue.
• Security is available 24 hours a day to assist patients and visitors with escorts to their vehicles, jump-starts, and lockouts, or to address security concerns.

We advice you not keep excess personal items with you in the hospital, including jewelry, medications, credit cards and other valuables.

If you do notice something missing, please notify a nurse and we will check the lost and found, but ultimately, we cannot be responsible for the loss of personal items. If you have no way to send valuables home, you may contact a nurse about storing them in a safe in the Security Office.

To contact a Security Officer at Memorial Hospital call 574.647.6920 and at Elkhart Genral Hospital call 574.523.3289.

At Beacon Health System, we value patient safety and understand that good hand hygiene, by washing hands or using hand sanitizing gel, is the number one way to prevent the spread of germs.  Healthcare workers should perform hand hygiene before and after caring for each patient, therefore, we highly encourage you to remind your healthcare providers to clean their hands when entering your room.  It is also important for you, as the patient, and your visitors to practice good hand hygiene.  Clean your hands often, especially before eating, after using the restroom and after touching surfaces in the hospital room.