Using improvement science methods to increase accuracy of surgical consents

Area of Science:

• Patient Safety
• Quality Improvement in Healthcare
• Medical Communication

Background:

• Surgical consent is critical for preventing communication errors like wrong-patient, wrong-site, or wrong-procedure events.
• Breakdowns in communication during the perioperative period can lead to severe patient safety incidents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To increase the percentage of informed surgical and medical consent forms with accurate safety data.
• To improve the reliability of safety information at the initial perioperative contact point.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement initiative was implemented at a pediatric academic medical center.
• Activities included awareness campaigns, education, standardization, real-time feedback, and failure identification.
• Reviewed 54,082 consent forms across 13 surgical divisions from May 2011 to November 2012.

Main Results:

• The percentage of consent forms without safety errors increased from a median of 95.4% to 99.7% between May 2011 and June 2012.
• Following July 2012, the median percentage remained stable at 99.4%.
• Effective safety checks were demonstrated to facilitate error discovery and prevention.

Conclusions:

• A focused quality improvement initiative can significantly enhance the accuracy of surgical consent forms.
• Robust safety checks are essential for identifying and preventing errors in perioperative communication.
• Sustained improvements in consent accuracy contribute to overall patient safety in surgical procedures.