Surgical Checklist Advantages And Disadvantages

In accordance with the World Health Organisation (WHO 2008) checklist and Local trust policies, a team briefing was held before the day’s list started. The checklist is part of a second Global Patient Safety Challenge initiative entitled ‘Safe Surgery Saves Lives’, aimed at reducing the number of surgical deaths worldwide and was launched in June 2008. This not

In 2002 he published, Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. In this novel he uses real life scenarios that he experience while in residence. This book describes the mishaps that Dr. Gawande encountered as a surgical resident. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science was a National Book Award Finalist. In 2007, Gawande published Better: A Surgeon’s Note on Performance. This book made Amazon’s Top 10 Book list of 2007. Two years later, The Checklist Manifesto: How to get things Right was published. This book focus spoke about checklists in the medical field and how they dramatically raise effectiveness and reduce

Gawande in this article applies the surgeon precision to explain to us the reasons behind the uncertainty and the mess of medical care. In addition to this, Gawande provides us with some of the interventions which need to be applied and which will bring relief. This chapter therefore should be read by all students and health professionals. This is because Gawande believes that we can reduce the mistakes within the field of medicine and

In 2003, as an outcome of all the sentinel events reported to the Joint commission lead to the creation of the “The Universal protocol for preventing wrong site, wrong procedures, and wrong person surgery” (Mulloy & Hughes 2008). So, one of the ways that could have potentially prevented the situation from happening at the first place was implementing the universal protocol procedure. According to the protocol the conduction of proper pre as well as post-operating procedures are extremely mandatory. Therefore, by enforcing a standardized routine pre-operating procedure such as verifying the patient as well as the correct site for the procedure, by having the medical staff or preferably the physician marking the operating site with his or her initials before the surgery will be an effective preventive measure (Mulloy & Hughes 2008).

Surgical Technologists have an important role in the operation room (OR). There are different positions within the Surgical Technology field, including Scrub Surgical Technologist, Circulating Surgical Technologist, and Second Assisting Technologist. Scrub Surgical Technologists have a number of tasks, including prepping the patient for surgery, sterilizing the OR, gown and glove surgeons and assistants, and assists the surgeon and other surgical team members in a number of ways, such as passing instruments and dressing wounds. Circulating Surgical Technologists have a number of tasks as well, including checking patient’s charts, identifying patient and verifying the surgery that will be performed with consent forms, assisting anesthesia

The Safe Surgery Save Lives initiative undertaken by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008 focused on implementation of a surgical checklist. The safety checklist requires the surgical site be checked during the check in process as well as during the surgical time out.

The appropriate assessment of patients prior to surgery to identify coexisting medical problems and to plan peri-operative care is of increasing importance. The goals of peri-operative assessment are to identify important medical issues in order to optimise their treatment, inform the patient of the risks associated with surgery, and ensure care is provided in an appropriate environment secondly to identify important social issues which may have a bearing on the planned procedure and the recovery period and to familiarise the patient with the planned procedure and the hospital processes.(American Society of Anaesthesiologists)

The first edition helped reassure the use of customary terms and clarifications to record procedures in the medical documents; delivered the foundation for a computer based system to assess and evaluate operational procedures; facilitated effective communication as precisely as possible for the data related to procedures and services to organizations connected with insurance claims and conveyed uncomplicated data for analyzation and statistical commitments. This first edition focused on procedures for surgeries and touched on some degree of laboratory, radiology, and prescription techniques. These restrictions encouraged the delivery of the second edition of CPT just four years later in 1970. With this subsequent publication there was a heightened

Conversely, the How to Guide: Five Steps to Safer Surgery is an adjunct to the World Health Organization (WHO), Safe Surgery Saves Lives: The Second Global Patient Safety Challenge. In this, the primary goal is to confirm that surgical teams not only communicate, but follow safety standards in order to minimize common mistakes and insure the best outcome for surgical patients. The standards included in this literature emphasize, “improving anesthetic safety practices, ensuring surgery is undertaken on the correct part of the body, preventing surgical site infections, and improving communication and teamwork” (Beaumont & Russell, 2012). The actual checklist consists of the following 5-step process:

Lastly, in the surgery theatre, misidentification may happen due to the same factors formerly mention plus failure to mark site/side of surgery, failure to properly perform time-out, and multiple surgical teams (Chan et al., 2010). To analyze the risk for these errors, few factors will be analyzed including human factors (staffing, scheduling, supervision, and qualification), equipment and technology (scanners, computers, and software), Communication (between staff and patients, between staff, between staff and physician, between physician and patient, and between units), environmental factors (physical, safety, security, and preparedness), and procedures and policies (planning, staff education, patient education, protocols, patient identification, and patient observation) (Chan et al., 2010).

A focused audit will be done on all patients undergoing operative or invasive procedures for the next year. Results will be analyzed by the nurse manager and discussed at staff meetings. Evaluation of compliance will be done at the staff meetings and any recommendations for improvement will be discussed and approved at these meetings. Implementation of any recommendations will be instituted the following month. Summaries of the audit and any recommendations for improvement will be sent to the PI committee on a quarterly basis.

Mandatory in-services of all pre-op and surgical team will be conducted in regards to updated processes

In 2008, it was estimated that “medical errors total more than $19.5 billion” (Andel, 2012, p. 12). It is important to address and solve this problem at this time because the National Quality Forums (NQF) “never events” considers such events. Never events are events that occur that should have never occurred in the first place. Reducing and eventually eliminating wrong site surgeries will help improve patient safety in the operating room and become a leading example in improving patient safety in all aspects of healthcare.

1) According to the World Health Organization (WHO), how could at least half a million deaths due to surgical error be prevented every year?

Wrong site surgery remains the most frequently reported sentinel event, with 908 wrong site surgeries reported since 1995 (AORN, 2010). During the late 1990’s and early 2000’s there was a tremendous public concern and lack of trust for the medical profession, especially within surgical services. We as healthcare professionals needed to step up to the plate, slow down, and take responsibility to improve the quality of care we provide for our patients. Although there still is some resistance from surgeons and other healthcare professionals, overall there has been a general acceptance to universal protocol.