Patient Safety
JCAHO Warns About Surgical Fires
JCAHO's latest Sentinel Event Alert report calls on hospitals and ASCs to reduce the risk of fires in operating rooms. The bulletin says surgical fires are greatly underreported and preventable, urges better reporting of such fires and offers risk-reduction strategies.

The FDA estimates that about 100 surgical fires happen each year, causing up to 20 serious injuries and one to two patient deaths. While JCAHO's patient-safety reporting database includes only two OR fires since 1996, the alert comes on the heels of these published reports of OR fires: