A 35-year-old man is taken to the hospital after suffering multiple injuries in a car collision. He had surgery to repair an open tibial fracture and a spiral humerus fracture. The tibial repair is effective, but the surgeon performs the procedure on the incorrect arm. Which of the following techniques is most likely to prevent a similar error?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Eductional Objective: Wrong-site surgery is the most often reported major adverse event, according to The Joint Commission's sentinel event statistics. Contributing causes include emergency surgeries, inability to label the surgical site, inadequate communication, and surgeon tiredness. Multiple surgeries on the same patient and multiple surgeons, like in this example, increase the danger of operating at the wrong place. To reduce this danger, a preoperative verification process is essential. In addition to identifying the operation site, two health care personnel (e.g., a nurse and a physician) should independently verify the patient, procedure, and site. Because two doctors verifying identities simultaneously might result in the replication of a mistake, the "dual identifiers" must execute the verification independently.  The Joint Commission recommends use of a "surgical timeout" immediately prior to the procedure in order to conduct a final verification of the patient, procedure, and site.

A 35-Year-Old Man Is Taken to the Hospital After Suffering