Background Image: Image: Concentrated female surgeon performing surgery with her team in hospital operating room. Medics during surgery in operation theater.

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Safe Surgery Targeted Solutions Tool

While wrong site surgery events are rare, they can be life altering for the patients who sustain them. Wrong site surgery should never happen. When it does, the health care organization is vulnerable to additional risk and potential costs, and professional careers can be adversely affected.

Background Image: Image: Doctors wearing surgical masks and gowns performing an operation on patient in hospital operating theater.

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Safe Surgery

“We could have easily been one of the many hospitals that have had wrong site surgery, and I’m so glad that we decided to go into this venture with the Center for Transforming Healthcare, because I think it was inevitable that if we hadn’t changed our practices, we would have been one of the statistics.”

Susan M. McQuade, RN, Associate Director, OR/CVOR, Holy Spirit Health System, Pennsylvania

Background Image: Image: Surgeons in full surgical gear during operation.

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Wrong Patient, Wrong Site, Wrong Side Surgeries Still Happen

“People just simply have told me, ‘Dale, it won’t happen here. It can’t happen here, and it won’t happen to me.’ The truth of the matter is it can, it will, and it will continue unless we address our own barriers to the belief that we are infallible.”

Dale S. Duncan, RN, Director of Medical Affairs, AnMed Health, Illinois

What it does
How the Safe Surgery TST Works
Confidence in Your Surgical Care System
Additional Resources

What it Does

How do you know your surgical processes are as safe as they could be?

Read the Safe Surgery TST fact sheetLog in to TSTRequest TST access

The Center’s Safe Surgery Targeted Solutions Tool^® (TST^®) is a web-based application designed to help health care organizations assess their scheduling, pre-operative and operating room processes, determine the risks that lead to wrong site surgeries, and implement evidence-based practices that promote safety.

How the Safe Surgery TST Works

The Safe Surgery TST uses Robust Process Improvement^® (RPI^®) methodology in its design and structure. RPI is a fact-based, systematic and data-driven problem-solving approach that incorporates tools and concepts from Lean Six Sigma and formal change management methodologies. RPI tools have the depth and breadth to tackle complex and persistent problems in health care, such as preventing surgeries on the wrong site, wrong side, and wrong person. The widespread deployment of RPI is a powerful improvement mechanism that facilitates the drive to zero patient harm.

Video: Using the TST for safe surgery

Confidence in Your Surgical Care System

Since the occurrence of wrong site surgery is rare, with most organizations going years without an occurrence, it could take a long time to monitor the incidence of wrong site surgery for a project. However, it is possible to monitor surgical cases for weaknesses that might result in a wrong site surgery, and that is exactly what the TST for Safe Surgery does. Our Safe Surgery TST can help your organization take a critical look at your entire surgical care system, from the time a procedure is scheduled through the completion of the operation — promoting safe surgery practices critical to patient safety. It will also help you standardize practices and promote consistency in perioperative processes across multiple providers.

Additional Resources

The following additional resources are available for the Safe Surgery TST:

Safe Surgery Overview

Targeted Solutions Tool (TST)