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S U R G I C A L
S I T E
M A R K I N G
"Variations in site marking
are the equivalent of
asking people what a stop
sign should look like."
— Spence Byrum
marked sites under the faulty assumption that the site marking had been
washed off during the surgical preparation. "If a site marking is not seen during the pre-surgical pause, everything
stops," says Linda W. Frix, RN, BSN, CAPA, clinical director of the
Northern Virginia Surgery Center in Fairfax, Va.
Following protocol
The Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong Site, Wrong Procedure
and Wrong Person
Surgery involves 3
simple steps: surgical
site marking, preoperative verification
and a time out.
Despite the mandatory and widespread
implementation of
the Universal
Protocol since 2004,
it's estimated that
wrong-site, wrong-
5 2 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E | A P R I L 2 013
