This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Commission makes additions to tool in effort to reduce risks for wrong site surgery
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare has announced that it will test targeted solutions to reduce the risks involved in wrong site surgeries, and add successful methods to its targeted solutions tool.
“We know that orthopedic surgical procedures, which almost always have either a laterality of side to choose from — or in the case of spinal surgery, at which level in the spine the operation will occur — are at higher risk,” the Joint Commission president Mark Chassin, MD, MPP, MPH, said in a press conference. “We also know that where more than one surgical procedure is scheduled at the same time, the second procedure or even the third is at risk if the processes for guaranteeing the nature of the procedure and the patient’s identity are not followed as rigorously as with the first one.”
Looking at all steps from scheduling to surgery, the commission found 39% of case errors originated during patient scheduling.
In a high-volume center, a large problem involving multiple patients, can stem from one small oversight, according to Rudy Manthei, DO, FOCOO, president and chief executive officer of Seven Hills Surgery Center.
Each institution that uses the tool will be able to tailor it to their specific identified risks, whether that is scheduling or other problem areas such as missing documents at the time of preoperative preparation, inconsistent procedures for marking the surgical site or key omissions at the final step in verification before the start of surgery.
“There isn't a simple way to prevent wrong site surgery; it takes a comprehensive approach,” Chassin said.
Additions to the targeted solutions tool are intended for release in the fall, he noted.
Reference:
Follow
OrthoSuperSite.com on Twitter