"TIME-OUT!"
That’s the message, spelled out in big red letters, every surgical team at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., sees before beginning a case. The words are written on the "timeout towels" hospital personnel designed last year after a wrong-site surgery was reported at the facility, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Staff cover the instruments for each case with the towel to remind the OR team to stop for a time out before making the first incision.
The surgical time out has been standard procedure for years, and yet stories of surgeries being performed on the wrong site or wrong patient continue to surface. Researchers from the University of Minnesota visited about 50 hospitals last year to observe time out practices, and they found that a time out was not always called before each procedure, and in many cases the time out was conducted without full and attentive participation by the entire surgical team, including the surgeon.
How do you guarantee your staff’s compliance with the surgical time out? Send your best tips and ideas to itsikitas@outpatientsurgery.net.
Photo: Jeffrey Thompson, Minneapolis Star Tribune.
