Fine Tune Your Time Outs
4 ways to encourage your staff to speak up to prevent an error.
I
f we're all taking a time out before every surgery, then why do
wrong-site anesthetic blocks and wrong-site surgery persist?
Perhaps we can improve how we perform our pre-op pauses.
Not a glossed-over routine. The time out isn't a checkbox exer-
cise that a nurse can do alone in the corner. Staff members, sur-
geons and anesthesia providers must actively participate in the
process. Surgeons should lead time outs, in my opinion, but that does-
n't always happen. Sometimes the surgeon isn't even in the room
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Safety
Dwight Burney, MD
• FEAR FACTOR Scripted messages can help nurses alert surgeons to potential trouble.
