Too Many Wrong Site Surgeries Every Week In The United States
The Washington Post has recently revealed that according to the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare 40 wrong-site surgeries happen every week in the United States.
Amputating The Wrong Leg
Mistakes include amputating the wrong leg, operating on the wrong patient or in lay terms, performing the wrong surgery. Surgeon Dennis O'Leary says that wrong site surgery may be prevented by checking things as simple as that the right patient is on the operating table or that an X-ray isn't flipped....
With the cooperation of 8 hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, the Commission studied their operating protocols and found that the risk of wrong-site surgeries happening increased with problems within the facilities' preoperative procedures and scheduling processes, as well as ineffective communication and distractions in the operating rooms. The study showed that by establishing redundant verification procedures in the preoperative rooms the risk of wrong-site surgeries decreased from 52% to 19% therefore increasing patient safety.
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