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Commission releases solutions to reduce risks for wrong-site surgery
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The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare announced that it will test solutions for reducing the risks of performing wrong-site surgeries and add proven methods to its targeted solutions tool.
Institutions that use the tool will be able to tailor it to their specific identified risks. Looking at all steps from scheduling to surgery, the commission found that 39% of case errors originated during patient scheduling. Other areas of concern were missing documents at the time of preoperative preparation, inconsistent procedures for marking the surgical site and key omissions at the final step in verification before the start of surgery.
“There is always a side issue [in ophthalmological surgeries] in both the anesthesia and the operation that need to be lateralized; those are types of procedures with higher risk,” Mark Chassin, MD, MPP, MPH, Joint Commission president, said.
A high-volume center such as an ophthalmology surgery practice, “can turn a simple mistake into a significant problem affecting multiple patients,” according to Rudy Manthei, DO, FOCOO.
“There isn’t a simple way to prevent wrong site surgery; it takes a comprehensive approach,” Dr. Chassin said.
This addition to the targeted solutions tool is intended for release in the fall, according to Dr. Chassin. Further information is available at http://www.centerfortransforminghealthcare.org/.