N
o surgeon wakes up in the morning
with the intention of performing a
wrong-site surgery and yet these
types of never events continue to
happen, even with protocols and
practices in place to prevent them. It's clear the
inconsistent or improper use of checklists before
and after surgery continues to be an issue at surgi-
cal facilities across the county.
Checklists are multidisciplinary tools, but not all
participants in pre-op time outs are actively
engaged in completing them. Because of this,
Kimberly Platt, MSN, RN, CAPA, director of nursing
surgical services at Cleveland Clinic's Marymount
Hospital, helped launch the "Summer of Safety" ini-
tiative with the aim of re-educating the periopera-
tive team about the importance of performing time
outs and using checklists to improve patient safety
— and how to implement each properly.
"Some nurses said they needed a checklist, a visi-
ble aid, so we set out to develop a checklist that
created actual accountability for each step of the
Universal Protocol," says Ms. Platt. "The sign-in,
time out and sign-out now have specific communi-
cation tasks for each team member to complete in
order to ensure all items are addressed."
D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 0 • O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y . N E T • 4 9
Danielle Bouchat-Friedman | Associate Editor
A Simple Tool Makes Surgery Safer
Using checklists during pre-op time outs
and post-op debriefings protects patients from harm.
CLOSING REMARKS The OR staff at Women's Hospital in Baton Rouge, La., run through its debriefing card at the end of each procedure.
Kristy
Simmons
