This one comes from my Dad, who recently noticed nurses having to follow back all of the IV cables to figure out what they were, and whether they were the ones that they wanted to shut off. He doesn’t know why they can’t simply color-code the lines: green is food, clear is hydration, blue is pain medication, yellow is antibiotic, and so on. Even in the case of a color-blind nurse unable to tell the red line from the green, the situation would be no worse than it is today.

In cases where there are more than one of a given color, the situation is also simpler than it is today.