Surgical Timeout and Retained Foreign Bodies – Patient Safety in the Operating Room

Abstract

There has been much debate about patient safety after the release of the landmark report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System in 1999 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) [1]. The authors report 44,000–98,000 deaths per year due to medical errors in the United States. The IOM called for more than 50% decrease in the number of deaths within the 5 years following that publication establishing goals and strategies to achieve this result. These goals include: (1) Establishing a national focus to create leadership, research, tools, and protocols to enhance knowledge. (2) Identifying and learning from errors by developing a nationwide, public, mandatory reporting system, and by encouraging healthcare organizations and practitioners to develop and participate in voluntary reporting systems. (3) Raising performance standards and expectations for improvements in safety through the actions of oversight organizations, professional groups, and group purchasers of healthcare. (4) Implementing safety systems in healthcare organizations to ensure safe practices at the delivery level.