DENVER, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time, nurses, surgeons and accredited hospitals throughout the country are being required to adopt a common set of operating room procedures in an effort to eliminate the alarming number of deaths and injuries due to wrong-site, wrong procedure and wrong person surgeries.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040621/LAM050 )
Six national health care organizations and associations, led by the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), have joined together to promote the adoption of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations’ Universal Protocol for preventing wrong site surgery errors in U.S. operating rooms. To promote the new requirements, surgeons, perioperative nurses, anesthesiologists and other members of the health care team have declared June 23 National Time Out Day.
On July 1, all Joint Commission-accredited hospitals, ambulatory care and office-based surgery facilities will be required to take a “time out” before a surgery begins. The “time out” is a final step before a surgical procedure to verify that the correct procedure will be performed on the correct patient.
According to the Institute of Medicine Nov. 1999 report, “To Err Is Human,” an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans lose their lives due to medical errors each year (from all procedures, not just surgeries). Untold thousands more suffer injury or illness as a result of preventable errors.
National Time Out Day was created to increase awareness and generate greater urgency for implementation of the Universal Protocol among the health care community. The “time out” is one of several requirements of the Universal Protocol that will apply to the more than 70 million surgeries performed annually.
The National Time Out Day is one of many efforts underway to increase patient safety and identify the cause of errors. It is significant because it represents collaboration among nurses, physicians and health care executives to reduce errors and improve care.
Besides AORN, the organizations promoting National Time Out Day are the Joint Commission the American Hospital Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and the American Society for Health care Risk Management. Approximately 50 health care associations are endorsing the Universal Protocol. Beginning July 1, 2004, 4,579 accredited hospitals, 1,261 accredited ambulatory care facilities and 138 accredited office-based surgery centers will be implementing the Universal Protocol.
“Having a standardized set of operating room guidelines will reduce medical errors and is, therefore, of critical importance to the quality of patient care in this country,” said Bill Duffy, RN, BSN, MJ, CNOR, president of AORN.
“AORN and our partners in the health care community have planned National Time Out Day as a way to show the public that we are serious about patient safety and are taking the necessary steps to reduce errors that can result in preventable injuries and deaths,” Duffy said.
AORN has created a special National Time Out Day Web site, http://www.nationaltimeoutday.com/, and distributed 55,000 tool kits to health care professionals throughout the country to help facilitate that implementation.
Patients and their families are encouraged to have ongoing communication with their health care providers about their medical care. Better communication among patients, nurses and physicians is an important ingredient to improve overall care.
ABOUT AORN
AORN is the professional organization of perioperative registered nurses whose mission is to support registered nurses in achieving optimal outcomes for patients undergoing operative and other invasive procedures.
AORN promotes quality patient care by providing its members with education, standards, services, and representation. AORN is composed of 40,000 perioperative registered nurses in approximately 6,700 hospitals and 3,500 ambulatory surgery centers in all 50 states and around the world. These nurses work on the front lines, caring for patients from pre-surgery through surgery and recovery, so no one is better qualified or has the capacity to advocate for and ensure patient safety in the surgical setting.
For more information about AORN, call 303-755-6304 or visit the organization’s Web site at http://www.aorn.org/.
Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040621/LAM050PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.comAssociation of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN)
CONTACT: Ann Dickerson, adickerson@johnstonwells.com, or Elise Herzog,eherzog@johnstonwells.com, both of JohnstonWells Public Relations,+1-303-623-3366, for Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN)
Web site: http://www.nationaltimeoutday.com/
Web site: http://www.aorn.org/
Web site: http://www.johnstonwells.com/
