Surgical Fire Safety: An Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Improvement Project

Surgical team members use fire risk assessment tools to determine the risk of a surgical fire occurring and facilitate communication to reduce risk. The purposes of this quality improvement project were to improve knowledge and awareness of surgical fire risk and increase practitioners' use of a fire risk assessment tool during the surgical safety communication process. We recruited a purposive sample of participants that included all surgical team members of a metropolitan ambulatory surgical center. We based the educational intervention on published evidence and findings of a preintervention knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) survey. We assessed knowledge, current practice, and practice intent using a 10-item pretest and posttest, and used a follow-up posttest to assess knowledge retention and practice change. The findings suggest that a brief educational intervention regarding fire risk assessment contributes to improving staff member knowledge and use of prevention strategies.