Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

What's the Harm? - December 2015 - Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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3 8 O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 Time for a New Surgical Checklist It starts earlier, ends later, saves time and prevents complications. T he patient has been wheeled into the OR and put under. The surgeon and OR staff are scrubbed and ready to go. The tools are glistening on the table. All that's left before the first incision is the surgical time out. Is this the right patient? Is this the right body part? Does the patient have any anesthesia issues? (Let's hope not, because we've already administered it.) Do we have the implants? (We'd better, because the patient's already asleep.) Let's face it. The World Health Organization surgical checklist most of us use, while better than nothing, can be way too little, way too late. In fact, it's mostly just window dressing, designed to cover governmental and accreditation pressures. It may be appropriate and very useful in Third World settings, which is what it was designed for, and where resources are often very limited, but in the First World, it's bare-bones. The fact that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States should be all the proof anyone needs that we need to do better. Much better. And we can. S A F E T Y Lorne King Rosenfield, MD z ADVANCED THINKING Staff begin taking care of checklist items long before the day of surgery.

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