Quality & Patient Safety

Study finds surgical errors persist despite initiatives

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, October 20, 2010

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A study in the October issue of Archives of Surgery found that despite guidelines such as The Joint Commission's Universal Protocol™ being largely known and adopted, surgical errors continue to happen, according to HealthDay.

The study collected data on surgical errors which provided insurance liability to 6,000 Colorado physicians from 2002 to 2009. Diagnostic errors accounted for 56% of the operations on the wrong patient, and 100% of wrong patient surgeries were due to poor communication.

For wrong-site operations, 85% were due to errors in judgment, and 72% were caused by a failure to perform a time out.

Source: HealthDay



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