8 0 S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5
What's the top safety challenge surgical facilities must address?
It's still teamwork and communication. The OR is a fast-
paced, high turnover environment with hazards all
around. Being mindful of those risks and having effec-
tive teamwork in place to mitigate them are critical.
How can surgical professionals work better as a team?
They need to treat patients emphatically and they
need to treat their colleagues respectfully. If they don't
work in a culture of respect, staff members might see risk,
but they won't speak up about it. OR teams have to get to
know caregivers in pre-op and PACU. They often have a
myopic view of teamwork, which they think involves only
the people who work in the OR. In reality, they're working
in a team of teams.
What is a "culture of safety" and what does it mean in the OR?
It means the organization and all the people in it prioritize
patient safety. They're constantly looking for things that could
go wrong. There's an infrastructure that lets clinicians do their
jobs. That sounds simple, but many ORs don't have the
equipment or staff training needed to protect patients.
Facilities with strong safety
cultures have those things in
place.
T
he Constant Quest for Zero
Peter J. Pronovost, MD, PhD, FCCM
Anesthesiologist and critical care physician
dedicated to improving patient safety
Dr. Pronovost (ppronovo@jhmi.edu) is senior vice presi-
dent for patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins
Medicine in Baltimore, Md. He authored the book Safe
Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist
Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out.
