When was the last time you held a fire prevention in-service for your staff? Education is the best defense against surgical fires, says the ECRI Institute, which is sponsoring a Web conference on surgical fire safety on July 22.
ECRI estimates that about 550 to 650 surgical fires occur in the United States each year. That’s a relatively low number, but the high stakes involved in these potentially deadly accidents led ECRI to rank surgical fires No. 5 on its list of the Top 10 Health Technology Hazards of 2008. Just last month, a patient who was badly burned in an OR fire involving electrocautery was awarded $1.3 million in damages in a malpractice suit that found the surgeon at fault.
ECRI’s Web conference will feature a number of experts discussing how surgical fires occur, updated guidance on how to prevent them and strategies for educating OR staff about the risks and safe practices. The 90-minute conference will be moderated by Jim Keller, ECRI’s vice president for health technology evaluation and safety, who wrote about electrosurgery safety in OSM’s December 2008 Safety Issue.
—Irene Tsikitas
