Patient Safety Challenges in Surgical care

Patient safety in surgeries remains a daily challenge in the operating room, despite the implementation of the universal protocols in healthcare systems.

As surgery plays an increasingly noticeable role in healthcare worldwide, rising attention is being focused on the safety and quality of such care. Surgery can avoid the loss of a body organ or a life, but it carries a high risk of complications, including perioperative death. Patients who experience perioperative difficulties might significantly lengthen their overall hospital stay, which can raise expenses and even mortality rates.

Prior to the patient entering the operating suite, patient safety must be ensured, and all significant types of preventable medical errors must be taken into account (including, for example, surgical site infections). Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common healthcare-associated infections among surgical patients, and unfortunately, some cases are caused by resistant organisms as a result of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which has emerged as one of the major public health problems of the twenty-first century and has resulted in an international public health crisis.

Surgical procedures present a huge risk to patients, and adverse patient outcomes are usually due to insufficient non-technical skills among the surgical staff. Thus, these skills are required to be developed and maintained constantly.

Despite clear evidence and guidelines to ensure safe surgeries in the operating room, compliance is consistently poor and major problems arise when introducing evidence and clinical guidelines into routine daily practice. High rates of inappropriate practices in surgeries continue to be reported.

We, the Compass Health Consultancy, believe that “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” and that safety focused team initiatives will help organizations improve their team performance.

 The Compass Health Consultancy‘s objective is to increase operating room safety through human factors training and, eventually, the construction of a robust functional system. Our efforts have prepared us for the successful implementation of a multimodal strategy to ensuring operating room safety throughout our program.