Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Work-Life Balance - January 2017 - Subscribe to 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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conversation with a straightforward question: Why do surgical errors keep happening? The answer, it seems, is a bit complicated. Culture clash A pair of recent studies grabbed national headlines by claiming medical care gone wrong kills either 250,000 or 450,000 people each year, depending on which researchers you believe, making it the third lead- ing cause of death — behind only cancer and heart disease — in the United States. Some questioned the evidence and debated which esti- mate is more accurate. What difference does it make? There's only one number that matters. "It should be zero," says Sue McWilliams, RN, MSN, of the Northern Arizona School of Nursing in Flagstaff and an advisor to CaimpaignZero, an advocacy group dedicated to preventing the medical errors that cause patient harm. Ms. McWilliams spent some time as a surgi- cal nurse during her 30-year career in health care. Nine months, to be exact. It was the stress of the OR that drove her to follow her passion in more relaxed clinical settings. Does the pressure-cooker environment of the OR put undue strain on the surgical team, forcing them to keep patients moving through the facility instead of focusing on the one who's on the table? Does the lashing out of stressed-out surgeons distract cowering nurs- es and techs from protecting patients? Yes, perhaps a surgical team who's constant- J a n u a r y 2 0 1 7 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 2 3 A Year of Safety-Centered Content Over the next 12 months, we'll present ways to protect patients from avoidable harm. up next in February: Drilling down to the root causes of surgical errors. SURGICAL ERRORS

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