OR Nurses List Top 10 Patient Safety Issues

The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) conducted a survey of its membership in 2012 to identify the top patient safety issues. The June 2013 issue of the AORN Journal, publishes these findings along with recommendations for improving patient safety in Top 10 Patient Safety Issues: What More Can We Do?

The nurses reported the following patient safety issues related to surgical and post-surgical medical errors and injuries:

1. Wrong site/procedure/patient surgery
2. Retained surgical items
3. Medication errors
4. Failures in instrument reprocessing
5. Pressure injuries
6. Specimen management errors
7. Surgical fires
8. Perioperative hypothermia
9. Burns from energy devices
10. Intubation or airway emergencies

We will follow up on this report with a series of posts looking into each of these identified patient safety issues and highlight the recommendations set forth by AORN.

View our main website at LubinandMeyer.com - Lubin & Meyer PC - Medical Malpractice Lawyers practicing in MA, NH and RI.