Wrong Site Surgery Too Common In The United States
According to the Washington Post, the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare has stated that 40 wrong-site surgeries happen every week in the United States.
Performing The Wrong Surgery
Mistakes include amputating the wrong leg, removing a kidney from the wrong patient or in lay terms, performing the wrong surgery. According to surgeon Dr. Dennis O'Leary, the problem may be prevented by following some very simple rules, including the preoperative verification of important details, like making sure that an X-ray isn't flipped or that the right patient is on the operating table....
The Commission studied the operating protocols at 8 hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. The Commission found that problems with the facilities preoperative procedures and their scheduling processes, as well as ineffective communication and distractions in the operating rooms increased the risk of wrong-site surgeries. All of these surgical facilities found that establishing redundant verification procedures in the preoperative rooms decreased the risk of wrong-site surgeries from 52% to 19% and, consequently, increased patient safety.
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