OSM560-April_DIGITAL_rev_Layout 1 4/8/13 11:07 AM Page 47
No exceptions
In an ideal world, as one reader put it, "every patient would be
marked by the same person the same way — no choices and no
exceptions."
Nearly three-fourths (71.3%) of the 564 surgical facility managers we
surveyed adhere to the Universal Protocol by writing either the surgeon's initials (55.1%) or YES (16.2%) large and legibly to identify the
surgical site.
But for a sizable portion of our respondents, site marking is a curious chance to freelance rather than being the standardized practice it
A P R I L 2 013 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E | 4 7
