Purple is the New Yellow? Banning LiveStrong Wristbands

St Petersburg Times / Tampa Bay Online ^ | 12/10/2004 | Stephanie Hayes

[dr_pat]

Never listen to radio news while lurking in FR. I half-heard a story about a hospital that banned yellow LiveStrong wristbands popularized by cyclist Lance Armstrong. (Proceeds from sale of the wristbands benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation.) According to the news reader, the wristbands are a problem because "yellow is the color that means a 'Do Not Recuscitate' order". I had to do quite a bit of searching to find the original story in the St. Petersburg Times.

Excerpts:

...The hospitals, all associated with BayCare Health Systems, use the same color codes. Purple means the patient is at risk of falling down; red means the patient has allergies; and white is an identification bracelet.

Tampa General Hospital uses purple, not yellow, to identify people who don't want to be resuscitated. But hospital spokeswoman Ellen Fis s [sic] said she sympathizes with those who use yellow DNR bracelets...

...While Tampa General does not yet make patients remove wristbands, she said the hospital would not rule out such a possibility if purple became the new yellow.

Officials at the Lance Armstrong Foundation declined to comment.

While LiveStrong bracelets are the most popular, with 28-million sold in all 50 states and in 60 countries, they are just one piece of the rubber wristband phenomenon. Choosehope.com, a site that sells items to benefit cancer research, sells a purple "hope" wristband... The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's Puget Sound affiliate makes a pink "together" band, sold at New Balance stores...

Aside from some blog entries, the only other hit I get is for a news story from the Virginian Pilot (Hampton Roads, VA) about a local power-play over whether high-school athletes can wear them.

[dr_pat]

Sounds to me from the excerpt (in italics, emphasis mine) that colored wristbands in ANY color are the issue, not just the yellow LiveStrong ones.

[nuffsenuff]

I think the hospital staff should be required to quadruple-check the wrist bands just to make sure.

[DennisR]

I think Kerry wore one of these - what a nerd. Obviously did not help him!

[UseYourHead]

Sounds to me like we have a hospital staff problem when they have to rely on a color-coded wrist band rather than require the staff to KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT WHO THEY ARE CARING FOR!!! I didn't need a wrist band to know who was what - that what the shift change report was for.

[atomicpossum]

HOW ABOUT A WRISTBAND THAT SAYS "DO NOT RESUSCITATE?" Do we need color-coding for the illiterate health care workers? If so, I don't want them working on me AT ALL.

[Petruchio]

I thought the color codes meant:

*yellow-hug/head
*orange-kiss or outdoor sex
*purple-kiss/anal sex/hug/oral sex/handjob
*red-lapdance/fingering/oral sex(on a girl)/kiss
*green-oral sex/make-out/hug/outdoor sex
*clear-whatever the person who snapped it off wants
*blue-oral sex/kiss
*black-missionary sex/strip
*white-flash who snapped it off
*glittery yellow-hugging & kissing
*brown-toss my salad
*glow-in-the-dark-use sex toys
*pink-flash someone/make-out/kiss
*glittery gold-make-out

I need a cheat sheet to keep up with this crap!

Ref: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jelly+bracelets&defid=843821

[Fredgoblu]

I think Kerry wore one of these - what a nerd.

No...that actually was a DNR notification.

[dr_pat]

It's worse than that - if you visit the original story, you can see that (aside from the color) the wristband looks nothing like a hospital band. So a hospital worker who misreads a LiveStrong band as a DNR order is not getting close enough to the patient to see the difference.

"From down the hall I could see he had a DNR band on, so when he coded, I knew I didn't need to interrupt my lunch/conversation/self-manicure..."

[shadowman99]

WTF?

[dr_pat]

The hospital wristband DOES say "Do Not Resuscitate". So does the patient's chart. I assume the issue is that doctors and other hospital personnel may make the wrong assumption in a split-second triage decision.

Problem is, the illustration in the story makes it obvious that only in color do the two types of wristband have any similarity.

I smell legal weenies....

[dr_pat]

Hmmm... I guess I should have added "handkerchief color code" to the keywords.

People who want to signal their sexual orientation or preferred sexual expression covertly can wear a pocket handkerchief (or, it now seems, a colored gel brackelet) to indicate what they like. This is gay bathhouse chic percolating down to tweenie girl's fashion.

Not being a tweenie girl, the implication had totally escaped me. But, as I've observed through years of lurking here, FReepers know just about everything. Some of it is even useful.

[DennisR]

Obviously no one was paying attention to it...

[savedbygrace]

I think Kerry wore one of these - what a nerd.

Well, it worked. He was not recuscitated.

[dr_pat]

LOL

(Plus test of marginal graphic) Here's where

I blog books.

[dukeman]

For a few weeks over on DU they've been promoting wristbands for lefties to wear identifying them as "not responsible" for W's second term. If their wristbands are yellow and they all move to Tampa, then......