Surgery on the wrong patient or wrong body part is called a “never event,” because it is never supposed to happen. The reality is that wrong site surgery occurs often, and it is unacceptable. Wrong site surgeries occur an estimated 40 times a week — or five times a day — in the United States.
This year on National Time Out Day, June 8, The Joint Commission and the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN) are calling attention to the importance of a surgical team taking a time out before a procedure begins to make sure all are on the same page about the right patient, right site and right procedure to prevent surgical error.
AORN has heard from members concerned that time outs in 2022 are being conducted hastily, likely because of surgical teams working through a backlog of operations postponed by the pandemic. This year’s theme, Make Time for Time Out, reminds us of the importance of taking a pause even when staff might be feeling rushed or overwhelmed.
To learn more about conducting a time out that can help reduce surgical error, The Joint Commission’s Universal Protocol outlines the steps to be included in a comprehensive time out. AORN’s Comprehensive Surgical Checklist enables individual facilities to meet The Joint Commission’s requirements and the World Health Organization’s standards while customizing the checklist according to surgical specialties.
Visit the National Time Out Day webpage for resources for organizations and healthcare changemakers.
Read the full statement.
A new independent study of 161 Joint Commission-accredited ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) reports that for each dollar invested in accreditation, an organization sees that dollar returned plus realizes an additional $6.28 in benefits as a direct result of accreditation. The study was completed by the ROI Institute.
ASCs participating in the study identified several key areas of return, including:
- Financial: Revenue and payer reimbursement rate.
- Improvements and efficiencies: Operational efficiencies and healthcare improvement efforts.
- Risk and safety: Reduction in liability insurance cost and risk and mitigation of lawsuits.
- Staffing: Reduction in staff turnover and improved competencies of staff and supervisors.
- Study participants identified positive influences of Joint Commission accreditation; leading areas of influence included organizational sustainability, patient safety and staff competencies.
- Organizations also named skills improved through the accreditation process, such as standardizing and creating impactful policies, processes and procedures, and implementing leading practices.
For more information on the return on investment related to accredited ambulatory surgery centers, review the infographic. Additionally, read the white paper for more on the study design, findings and challenges.
The Joint Commission is set to host a live webinar on June 28 about its new Direct Data Submission Platform (DDSP) that accredited hospitals will use for ORYX data. The one-hour webinar is scheduled for 9 a.m. PT / 10 a.m. MT / 11 a.m. CT / noon ET.
During this webinar, the presenters will address the following topics:
- The timeline for calendar year (CY) 2021 and CY 2022 accreditation data submission.
- The new DDSP onboarding process.
- The DDSP home page and user modules.
- How to locate and use available help resources.
- How to plan activities to meet all the key dates for onboarding.
A live Q&A segment will close out the webinar. For those unable to attend live, the webinar recording and presentation slides will be available through the registration link following the broadcast.
- Improvement Insights — Important Safety Role of Nurses in Improving Maternal Health: In our study from the upcoming issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, “Systems-Level Factors Affecting Registered Nurses During Care of Women in Labor Experiencing Clinical Deterioration,” we asked nurses, physicians and certified nurse-midwives at a tertiary care center to tell us stories about times when laboring patients experienced deterioration, as well as times when events went well. By comparing these stories, we gained an understanding of the barriers that nurses face during care of laboring people, writes Samantha Bernstein, PhD, RN.
- Ambulatory Buzz — Pandemic Edition: Top 10 Legislative Issues in Ambulatory Healthcare: As you might imagine, conversations about oversight and accreditation issues have taken a different turn since 2020. From my standpoint, the following issues are top of mind for ambulatory care organizations in most states, writes Mark Crafton, Executive Director, Strategic Alliances.