making surgery safer

[brownbook]

I have heard rumors so many good, interesting, ways to make OR safer for patients.

Are any OR's doing any of this?

The patient writes their own consent, or the patient tells what they are having done, the nurse writes it with quotation marks. Then another line has the consent written the way the surgeon wants it. The patient signs and the nurse witnesses.

The patient walks to the OR, introduces himself, first and last name, date of birth, and says in his own words what he is going to have done.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

I have heard rumors so many good, interesting, ways to make OR safer for patients.

Are any OR's doing any of this?

The patient writes their own consent, or the patient tells what they are having done, the nurse writes it with quotation marks. Then another line has the consent written the way the surgeon wants it. The patient signs and the nurse witnesses.

We have the patient tell us what they're having done, and make sure it matches the consent. If the patient says heart bypasses and the consent says coronary artery bypass grafting, we consider that the same, but we don't do the whole writing in quotation marks or having the patient writing their own consent. (If they just say heart surgery, we get them to clarify type- it could be CABG, it could be valve, it could be aorta- we do need something a little more specific than just "heart surgery")

The patient walks to the OR, introduces himself, first and last name, date of birth, and says in his own words what he is going to have done.

We don't have the patient walk (too far, Versed on board, sick in-house patients not able to walk) but we do have them confirm name, DOB, surgery, and type of anesthesia discussed before we have them move to the OR bed.