Surgery Checklist Case Study

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Introduction to the dilemma
Ensuring proper patient safety in the operation room starts prior to the patient entering the operation room. Special attention is given by the hospital staff to prevent surgical errors. Surgical errors consist of wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure, and retained foreign object(s). Wrong-patient surgery refers to a surgical procedure performed on an alternative patient rather than the patient who was intended to undergo the operation. The wrong-side surgery means a surgical procedure done on the incorrect extremity of the patient’s body. For example, in one case a patient needed a surgery to remove the left vulva due to cancer. Due to a surgical error, the patient had the right side of the vulva removed by surgeons (PSNet, 2017). The wrong-part surgery refers to a surgical procedure that takes place in the proper region, but at the wrong anatomical part. For example, operating on the incorrect level of the spine. Personnel involved in the care of the surgery patient should …show more content…

This incidence approximately occurs at a rate of one in 30,000 to less than one in 100,000 surgeries. The actual incidence might be even higher due to a reporting bias. The World Health Organization (WHO) created the safe surgery checklist in the year 2008. The aim of the safe surgery checklist was to diminish mistakes in patient care and adverse events. The WHO’s patient safety checklist has made recommendations to improve teamwork and communication (Thurnherr et al., 2017). The Universal Protocol also highlights the use of timeout before all procedures related to surgery and any invasive procedures. The concept of the surgical timeout is to set aside a planned time meeting in order to review crucial aspects of the procedure with all involved personnel. It helps in developing better communication in the operating room and lowers the risk of wrong site patient surgery (PSNet,

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