Patient Safety in Surgery

BACKGROUND: Improving patient safety is an increasing priority for surgeons and hospitals since sentinel events can be catastrophic for patients, caregivers, and institutions. Patient safety initiatives aimed at creating a safe operating room (OR) culture are increasingly being adopted, but a reliable means of measuring their impact on front-line providers does not exist. METHODS: We developed a surgery-specific safety questionnaire (SAQ) and administered it to 2769 eligible caregivers at 60 hospitals. Survey questions included the appropriateness of handling medical errors, knowledge of reporting systems, and perceptions of safety in the operating room. MANOVA and ANOVA were performed to compare safety results by hospital and by an individual's position in the OR using a composite score. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis was performed to validate the structure of the scale at the operating room level of analysis. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 77.1% (2135 of 2769), with a range of 57% to 100%. Factor analysis of the survey items demonstrated high face validity and internal consistency (α = 0.76). The safety climate scale was robust and internally consistent overall and across positions. Scores varied widely by hospital [MANOVA omnibus F (59, 1910) = 3.85, P < 0.001], but not position [ANOVA F (4, 1910) = 1.64, P = 0.16], surgeon (mean = 73.91), technician (mean = 70.26), anesthesiologist (mean = 71.57), CRNA (mean = 71.03), and nurse (mean = 70.40). The percent of respondents reporting good safety climate in each hospital ranged from 16.3% to 100%. CONCLUSIONS: Safety climate in surgical departments can be validly measured and varies widely among hospitals, providing the opportunity to benchmark performance. Scores on the SAQ can serve to evaluate interventions to improve patient safety

Alert‐Triggered Patient Education Versus Nurse Feedback for Nonadministered Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis Doses: A Cluster‐Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Many hospitalized patients are not administered prescribed doses of pharmacologic venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. Methods and Results In this cluster‐randomized controlled trial, all adult non–intensive care units (10 medical, 6 surgical) in 1 academic hospital were randomized to either a real‐time, electronic alert–triggered, patient‐centered education bundle intervention or nurse feedback intervention to evaluate their effectiveness for reducing nonadministration of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis. Primary outcome was the proportion of nonadministered doses of prescribed pharmacologic prophylaxis. Secondary outcomes were proportions of nonadministered doses stratified by nonadministration reasons (patient refusal, other). To test our primary hypothesis that both interventions would reduce nonadministration, we compared outcomes pre‐ versus postintervention within each cohort. Secondary hypotheses were tested comparing the effectiveness between cohorts. Of 11 098 patient visits, overall dose nonadministration declined significantly after the interventions (13.4% versus 9.2%; odds ratio [OR], 0.64 [95% CI, 0.57–0.71]). Nonadministration decreased significantly (P<0.001) in both arms: patient‐centered education bundle, 12.2% versus 7.4% (OR, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.48–0.66]), and nurse feedback, 14.7% versus 11.2% (OR, 0.72 [95% CI, 0.62–0.84]). Patient refusal decreased significantly in both arms: patient‐centered education bundle, 7.3% versus 3.7% (OR, 0.46 [95% CI, 0.37–0.58]), and nurse feedback, 9.5% versus 7.1% (OR, 0.71 [95% CI, 0.59–0.86]). No differential effect occurred on medical versus surgical units. The patient‐centered education bundle was significantly more effective in reducing all nonadministered (P=0.03) and refused doses (P=0.003) compared with nurse feedback (OR, 1.28 [95% CI, 1.0–1.61]; P=0.03 for interaction). Conclusions Information technology strategies like the alert‐triggered, targeted patient‐centered education bundle, and nurse‐focused audit and feedback can improve venous thromboembolism prophylaxis administration. Registration URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT03367364