She was glad to have the safeguard. If she were to take Monopril, "My throat and nose swells up and gets to the point I can't breathe," said Gerhardt, 80, from Corrine. "[It's] important that I don't take it."

Starting this summer, patient wrist band colors in Utah medical facilities will be standardized - such as red for allergies -- to avoid a mistake made in Pennsylvania. In 2005, a traveling nurse placed a wristband on a woman to signify she had allergies, but in that hospital it meant DNR. The mistake was caught before the patient was harmed.

"This could possibly happen in Utah," said Debra Wynkoop, director of health policy for the Utah Hospitals and Health Systems Association.

Utah hospitals currently use seven different colors to signify DNR, she said. The state's new colors match Arizona and New Mexico's, where nurses may travel from to work here.

Other efforts underway:

- The Utah Hospital Association is developing a video to standardize how central venous catheters are inserted, to prevent related bloodstream infections.

- The state has new recommendations for lifting and transferring overweight patients to prevent falls.

- A 2005 initiative standardized how surgical sites are marked.