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Journal Article > Commentary
Integrating patient safety education into early medical education utilizing cadaver, sponges, and an inter-professional team.
Kutaimy R, Zhang L, Blok D, et al. BMC Med Educ. 2018;18:215.
Incorporating patient safety content into the demanding schedule of medical school education is challenging. This commentary describes the design and implementation of an embedded patient safety and quality improvement learning opportunity. The approach used a retained surgical sponge simulation during an anatomy course to illustrate how errors can occur, affect the patient, and be prevented. A PSNet perspective explored the value of simulation as an educational technique.
Legislation/Regulation > Sentinel Event Alerts
Preventing unintended retained foreign objects.
Sentinel Event Alert. October 17, 2013;(51):1-5.
Sentinel event alerts are issued periodically by The Joint Commission to identify common or emerging patient safety problems and provide organizations with approaches for addressing these issues. A retained foreign object (RFO)—surgical materials or equipment unintentionally left in a patient's body after completing the operation—is a never event that can have serious clinical consequences. Despite being long recognized as a critical—and preventable—error, RFOs continue to occur, with nearly 800 cases being reported to The Joint Commission between 2005 and 2012. This alert makes several recommendations to help prevent RFOs, including focusing on enhancing the reliability of the traditional manual count of instruments and materials used during a procedure, improving safety culture in the operating room through interventions (e.g., teamwork training), and investigating technological approaches (e.g., bar coding of surgical sponges) to ease identification of potentially missing objects before patients are harmed.
Book/Report
To Err Is Human—But Don't Expect to Get Paid For It.
ASQ Quarterly Quality Report. Milwaukee, WI: American Society of Quality; October 2008.
This report describes strategies for health care institutions to prevent never events, based on results of a 2008 survey of quality professionals.
Journal Article > Study
Incidence, patterns, and prevention of wrong-site surgery.
- Classic
Kwaan MR, Studdert DM, Zinner MJ, Gawande AA. Arch Surg. 2006;141:353-358.
This AHRQ-supported study analyzed information from nearly 3 million operations between 1985 and 2004, discovering a rate of 1 in 112,994 cases of wrong-site surgery. Investigators further evaluated cases with available medical records, all of which were among the malpractice claims. In doing so, they noted that the Joint Commission's Universal Protocol might have prevented only 62% of the cases reviewed. At the rates reported, the authors suggest that the average large hospital may be involved in such an event every 5 to 10 years, a rate 10 times less frequent than retained foreign bodies. They also point out that while wrong-site surgery is a devastating and unacceptable outcome, current efforts to implement protocols may not prevent every event and may, in turn, create inefficiency in related processes. The authors offer a series of recommendations for a model site-verification protocol. The American College of Surgeons offers a fact sheet on correct-site surgery geared toward patient education.
Newspaper/Magazine Article
The wrong foot, and other tales of surgical error.
Altman LK. New York Times. December 11, 2001;1:1.
This news piece reports on wrong-site and wrong-patient surgery and describes efforts to prevent surgical errors following a Joint Commission sentinel event alert on the topic.