Taking patient safety to a new level in the operating room, JPS has launched an initiative winning both praise from patients and accolades from surveyors for The Joint Commission.
The Pre-operative Huddle is being piloted for surgical cases in Orthopedics, Women’s Services, and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Before patients go to the O.R., the surgical team assembles with the patient and his or her family members, giving them a chance to meet the people behind the surgical masks and understand the role each will play.
The Pre-op Huddle brings to the patient’s bedside the surgeon, anesthesiologist, O.R. nurse, scrub nurse, pre-op nurse, patient, family and an interpreter if needed. It takes a giant leap from the surgical “time out” already practiced in hospitals, leaving more time to make adjustments, prepare for possible complications, ensure that the O.R. is set up with all necessary tools, identify potential for errors and enable patients and families to be full participants. “Time outs” are short and occur in the O.R., “and that’s too late in the game,” said O.R. Manager Staci Medina, RN.
When JPS went under The Joint Commission’s microscope in February, surveyors took note, with one remarking, “Very impressed with this process. Very well done.” Calling it a national best practice, a surveyor said, “You can tell when a hospital is just going through the motions. At JPS, you can tell the Pre-op Huddle is normal practice. It shows your commitment to zero harm.”
No one was sure how patients and family members would react. Is there a limit to how much patients and their family members really want to know? “There was some concern it might frighten people,” Medina said. But that faded quickly. The Huddle has been overwhelming well-received by patients and families.
“I really liked it,” a patient noted in a post-discharge survey, “when the whole team that was going to work on me – the doctors, anesthesiologist, the tech people – gathered around my bed and said: ‘We are your team.’ I liked that a lot.”