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Site Marked and Verified
8 Practical Tips to Mark the Site Right
a must, it's an obligation to
the patient," says Spence
Northern Virginia Surgery Center, Fairfax, Va.
Byrum, a high-reliability-
1. Cleaning the skin with alcohol and letting it dry
before applying the mark will help the ink adhere
to the skin.
2. Be sure the site mark remains visible after you've
prepped and draped the patient.
3. Don't let patients leave the pre-operative holding
area unless they've been marked.
4. Don't use the same sterile marking pen on more
than 1 patient.
5. Don't mark any non-operative site(s). This will create confusion and increase the risk of wrong-sided
surgery.
6. Don't use adhesive site markers or temporary tattoos as the sole means of marking the site. They're
meant to supplement primary marks.
7. Final verification of the site mark should take place
during the
pre-op time out.
8. Ideally, the lead surgeon should mark the site, not
the nurse and not the anesthetist, unless he's
marking the site for a block.
SOURCE: Outpatient Surgery Magazine Reader
Survey
5 0 | 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
organization expert and former Coast Guard pilot who
teaches healthcare facilities
how to eliminate avoidable
errors. "Variations in site
marking are the equivalent
of asking people what a
stop sign should look like.
Can you imagine the chaos
if each individual, each city,
each state, each country
was allowed to chose what
their interpretation of a
stop sign should look like?"
Keep in mind, adds Mr.
Byrum, that many of your
surgeons and maybe some
of your staff routinely
operate in facilities other
than yours. "The need for a
