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National wrong site surgery protocol goes into effect July 1
The protocol includes signing the surgical site and a preoperative ‘time out.’
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The new universal protocol for preventing wrong site, wrong procedure and wrong person surgery is endorsed by more than 40 professional health care associations and organizations. It has four principal components:
A copy of the universal protocol and guidelines for implementing it can be found at the JCAHO Web site, http://www.jcaho.org. SOURCE: JCAHO |
Progress on a national effort to prevent wrong site, wrong procedure and wrong patient surgeries led by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations continues. More than 40 medical, nursing and health care leadership associations and organizations, including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons have endorsed it. The academy has had a wrong site surgery program in place since 1997.
The universal protocol was established to standardize presurgery procedures for verifying the correct patient, the correct procedure and the correct surgical site. It focuses on marking the surgical site, involving the patient in that process, and utilizing a procedure for taking a final “time out” in the OR so that all the members of the surgical team can double check information and ask questions.
It is also applicable to invasive but nonoperative procedures.
Compliance with the universal protocol becomes effective on July 1 when it will be required for all hospitals, ambulatory care surgery centers, and office-based surgery sites accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Until then compliance with the universal protocol is being urged.
“The universal protocol is truly a milestone. Despite the know-how we have to prevent these occurrences, wrong site, wrong procedure and wrong person surgery remains a significant national problem today,” JCAHO president Dennis S. O’Leary, MD, said at a press conference held in Chicago Dec. 2. Despite earlier attempts by the JCAHO to reduce the incidence of this problem through its Sentinel Event newsletter published in 1998 and 2001, it has persisted with more than 50 events reported in the first 11 months of 2003 and 60 reported in 2002, he said.
The protocol was the result of a summit held in May 2003 that was attended by AAOS and JCAHO corporate members: the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, the American Dental Association, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association.
The JCAHO Board of Commissioners approved it in July.
Support from surgical specialties
Patient safety is a high priority for the ACS, Thomas R. Russell, MD, FACS, executive director of the ACS, said in a statement. “We strongly urge surgeons and all members of the surgical team, as well as individual hospitals and other health care organizations, to follow the standardized procedures outlined in the universal protocol. With all members of the surgical team following this protocol, we can totally eliminate wrong patient, wrong operation, and wrong site surgery.”
“The AAOS fully endorses the Joint Commission’s universal protocol,” AAOS president James H. Herndon, MD, said during the press conference. “We are extremely grateful to the Joint Commission for bringing all these medical specialties together in this unified effort. Wrong site surgery is 100% preventable. Just one more incident of wrong site surgery is one too many. If all the endorsing organizations strongly encourage their members to follow the guidelines outlined in this protocol, wrong site, wrong person and wrong operation can become obsolete.”