Educating operating room teams on the importance of correct surgical bookings and time-out procedures reduced the risk of a wrong-site surgery, according to a study in the Journal for Healthcare Quality.
Near misses are errors that could have harmed a patient, but did not. Improper time-outs and inaccurate surgical bookings are examples of near misses that could lead to a never event such as a wrong-site surgery. From August 2010 to May 2011, researchers tracked the rate of these near misses at an academic, orthopedic surgery specialty institution.
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Surgeons, nurses and other members of the OR team who made the error were educated on the importance of accurate bookings and proper time-outs for patient safety. The rate of incorrectly booked cases decreased from 0.75 percent at baseline to 0.41 percent after the educational intervention. Similarly, the rate of improperly performed time-outs decreased from 18.7 percent to 5.9 percent. This reduction in near misses lowered the likelihood of a wrong-site surgery.
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