Patient safety in spine surgery: regarding the wrong-site surgery

Abstract

Patient safety regarding wrong site surgery has been one of the priority issues in surgical fields including that of spine care. Since the wrong-side surgery in the DM foot patient was reported on a public mass media in 1996, the wrong-site surgery issue has attracted wide public interest as regarding patient safety. Despite the many wrong-site surgery prevention campaigns in spine care such as the operate through your initial program by the Canadian Orthopaedic Association, the sign your site program by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeon, the sign, mark and X-ray program by the North American Spine Society, and the Universal Protocol program by the Joint Commission, the incidence of wrong-site surgery has not decreased. To prevent wrong-site surgery in spine surgeries, the spine surgeons must put patient safety first, complying with the hospital policies regarding patient safety. In the operating rooms, the surgeons need to do their best to level the hierarchy, enabling all to speak up if any patient safety concerns are noted. Changing the operating room culture is the essential part of the patient safety concerning spine surgery.

Keywords: Patient safety; Spine; Wrong-site surgery.

Fig. 1

Sign, mark, and X-ray preoperative check list (NASS) (Reprinted from: Sign, mark & X-ray (SMaX): a checklist for safety, with permission from North American Spine Society) [12].

Fig. 2

Example of preoperative surgical site marking: left side discectomy is planned at L5-S1 level.

Fig. 3

Preoperative check list at the Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine (Korea).

Fig. 4

Change of surgical site marking (A) and time-out (B) performance rate at the Severance Hospital.