Wrong Site Surgery: Cause and Prevention
Wrong site surgeries are rare but this type of errors can happen, this can be damaging for the patient not also physically but also emotional problems. Most of the time communication breakdown is considered the mayor cause of wrong site surgery in the medical team to perform the surgery. This type of errors are preventable, the Joint Commission’s universal protocol “time out” is a very important tool that will help to prevent the wrong site surgeries, wrong patient, and wrong procedure.
The Joint Commission Board of Commissioners approved the Universal Protocol for preventing wrong site, wrong procedure, and wrong person surgery in July 2003, and it became effective July 1, 2004, for all hospitals, urgent and ambulatory care, and office based surgery facilities. This Protocol was created to address the continuing occurrence of wrong site, wrong procedure and wrong person surgery and other procedures in Joint Commission accredited organizations. The three principal components of the Universal Protocol, this are a pre procedure verification, site marking, and a time out.
Most of the time the problems that you expect to be the easiest to fix turn out to be the most disturbing for surgeons and their teams, there are several causes for wrong site surgeries, and some of them that we can mention are:
Assume that one of the surgical team has confirmed the surgical site, person, and procedure
Doctor to perform surgery failing to mark the
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
The Priority Focus Area of Communication includes 3 Joint Commission (JC) standards relative to Universal Protocol. These 3 standards, which are components of the National Patient Safety Goals, are aimed at ensuring the correct
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).
As noted by Haugen, Murugesh, Haaverstad, Eide, and Softeland (2013) wrong site surgery continues to be a problem that can be prevented through the use of a checklist. In 2008, WHO published guidelines to ensure the safety of surgical patients. The guidelines included
With all of the possible problems that could occur during surgery, a wrong-site, wrong-patient mistake is one that should never arise. Nightingale Community Hospital (NCH) fully understands the importance of doing away with these errors and has set up protocol to work towards this goal. While the protocol is in place, it is not fully compliant with Joint Commission (JC) standards.
procedure site; 3. A time-out is performed before the procedure. Each of these areas are critical in preventing wrong-site, wrong-procedure events from happening. The Universal Protocol sets a standard for hospitals by outlining specific principles and strategies, while encouraging teamwork and consistency among all hospital staff.
Not all surgical procedures are the same, each procedure necessitates very specific skills, expertise, knowledge, and
The Joint Commission also addresses safety issues through the publication and distribution of the Sentinel Event which identifies a severe breach in safety and addresses ways on how to improve processes and to prevent harm in the future. It also publishes the National Patient Safety Goals which address healthcare safety and ways to solve problems that focus on issues such as identifying patients correctly, improving communication among staff, and administering medications safely, just to name a few. “A majority of Joint Commission standards are directly related to safety, addressing such issues as medication use, infection control, surgery and anesthesia, transfusions, restraint and seclusion, staffing and staff competence, fire safety, medical equipment, emergency management, and security. The standards also include requirements for preventing accidental harm; responding to patient safety events; and the organization’s responsibility to tell patients about the outcomes of their care” (TJC,
At least half a million deaths per year could be prevented with effective implementation of systemic improvements in operating rooms. Specifically, multiple studies have found implementing the use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist would significantly reduce surgical morbidity and mortality due to surgical errors.
All the Board-Certified Surgeons at The Surgery Group have many years of training and experience performing minimally invasive, robot-assisted and traditional open surgeries. Due to the number of procedures we have performed, our dedication to providing each patient with superior care and the investment we have made in state-of-the-art equipment, and training, our patient outcomes are typically better than those seen at other surgery centers in the Florida Panhandle.
A Wrong- site Surgery is defined as a Never Event where a surgery may be carried out on the wrong side of the body or on an incorrect body site. Events that involve surgery on the wrong body part, surgeries that involved incorrect procedure, or had a procedure intended for another patient are rightly termed Never Events. These "wrong-site, wrong-procedure, wrong-patient errors" (WSPEs) are errors that should never occur and indicate serious underlying safety problems.
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.
Plastic surgery is not the best choice for anybody because you never know what your final outcome is which Allison A. stated in 2008. Doctors cannot guarantee you will come out successfully from the surgery room. She also said that it is like a game where you do not know if you win at the end of the play. People turn to cosmetic products for better appearances but when it’s not enough or not satisfying to them, they turn to plastic surgery. They never think about the consequences of what they want to look like or the dangers and risks that are involved. Veronica S. (2007) believes that cosmetic surgery is more harmful than it is beneficial. Unnecessary surgery seems to put women in danger for the sake of Hollywood beauty. We all handle healing differently. Some may heal well and some won’t. Hykra (2005) states that if you have pre-existing health conditions cosmetic surgery can be really dangerous. He also reports that people with heart condition, diabetes, or if you are a smoker, or have allergies you may experience complications that others may not.
MedicineNet analyzes mental health risks as a result of unrealistic expectations of surgery. When a person engages in plastic surgery on the wrong grounds, they tend to be unsatisfied with their results. This causes stress and sometimes depression on the patient, which can also affect their physical health, due to delayed and/or prolonged healing time. It is critical for plastic surgeons to be specifically trained in psycho-therapy. During an initial consultation, the doctor must first determine whether the patient is emotionally stable. They look for things such as age, development, mental illness, whether the patient is realistic towards the outcome, whether the patient has recently undergone any sort of traumatic event, or any other factor capable affecting their mental health. Once this is assessed and the patient is cleared for surgery a whole new array of problems arise.