Outpatient Surgery Magazine

No Guarantees - March 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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"If you don't have a culture where people can speak up, you're never going to find out how to fix the problem," says Ms. Calloway, president of Patient Safety and Healthcare Consulting and Education in Dublin, Ohio. Her point: Creating a open, fair and just environment in which staff can report and discuss errors is no easy task, especially considering his- torical OR hierarchies, but it's an essential one. Where to begin? Follow these 6 steps. 1. Start at the top. Without administrative support, staff won't feel encouraged to speak up when they see behavior that could endanger a patient's safety. Ms. Calloway uses the example of a nurse refusing to hand a surgeon a scalpel when he hasn't completed a proper time out. "He might run to the administration and say the nurse is keeping him from doing the surgery," she says. "When there's a culture of safety in place, the administration might respond by ask- ing, 'Did you do a time out?' He'll answer, 'Well, no.' 'Then you can't have the scalpel.' If the staff doesn't get that kind of support, they wouldn't feel comfortable doing that." 2. Break down barriers. Establish an inter-professional task force to meet about "culture work" often, if not daily, says Ramon Berguer, MD, FACS, the former chief of surgery at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in Martinez, Calif. Dr. Berguer, who for 11 years served on the Committee on Perioperative Care of the American College of Surgeons, says it's helpful if these individuals have some background or education in patient safety. Also, he says a mediator might be helpful to iron out any substantive differences. Jennifer L. Fencl, DNP, RN, CNS, CNOR, the clinical nurse specialist and interim executive director for clinical support and research at 9 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A R C H 2 0 1 7 SURGICAL ERRORS

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