An Innovative Approach to the Surgical Time Out: A Patient-Focused Model

The surgical time out is an integral component of patient safety in OR settings. At The Center for Outpatient Surgery (TCOPS), a team of nurses and plastic and breast surgeons evaluated discrepancies, wrong-site surgeries, near misses, team communication, and patient satisfaction to develop and implement a surgical checklist that would help improve efficiency and patient safety and reduce near misses. This checklist involves the surgical team and patient, and it includes preoperative, preincision, and postoperative time outs. Since 2011, 4,453 procedures have used the preoperative and preincision timeouts. Of those, 998 have used all three when we added the postoperative component. Since the implementation of the checklist, there have been zero discrepancies and zero wrong-site surgeries. Patients have expressed satisfaction with their inclusion in the preoperative time out. Staff members at TCOPS have noted excellent results, and the checklist can be adopted by other specialties.