Protocol established for wrong-site surgery
Protocol established for wrong-site surgery
Beginning July 1, 2004, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare will require organizations that provide surgical services to comply with a new universal protocol for preventing wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-person surgery. Existing requirements under the 2003 and 2004 National Patient Safety Goals are included and expanded upon in the universal protocol. (For more information about the 2003 Patient Safety Goals, see Same-Day Surgery, Accreditation Update supplement, July 2003, p. 4; SDS, September 2002, p. 109.)
The principal components of the protocol include preoperative verifying, marking the operative site, taking a timeout immediately before starting the procedure, and adapting the requirements to nonoperating room settings, including bedside procedures.
Between five and eight new reports of wrong-site surgery are received by the Joint Commission each month, the agency reports. "The universal protocol asks health care organizations to set a goal of zero tolerance for surgeries on the wrong site or the wrong person, or the performance of the wrong procedure," says Dennis S. O’Leary, MD, president of the Joint Commission. "These are occurrences that should never happen."
More than 3,000 responses from surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, which the Joint Commission says were overwhelmingly supportive of the universal protocol, were received in the three-week comment period. To see a free copy of the protocol, go to www.jcaho.org. Under "Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong Site Surgery," click on "see protocol," then "see the universal protocol."
Beginning July 1, 2004, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare will require organizations that provide surgical services to comply with a new universal protocol for preventing wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-person surgery.Subscribe Now for Access
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