Article: Wrong-Site, Wrong-Procedure, and Wrong-Patient Surgery Back to article | View all comments

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Dear Mr. John,
Thank you for the very valid points that you have made. Personally, i tend to think that more than the undoubtedly useful protocols which are in place, what finally would determine the success or otherwise of this initiative would be the rate of reporting of such adverse incidents and more specifically, the “near misses”.

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Dear Dr. Aroon,
I found your article to be extremely interesting and informative. I have worked in the pre-op link of the surgery chain, but we were all included in traiing regarding implementation of the Mark/List/Pause strategy as well as being impressed with the statistics (1991 study figures) since we were all in part responsible for the outcome. From assembly of the chart to discharge there is room for errors. That the system is in place is comforting, even if we won’t know for some time to come just how effective it has been. It is interesting that nursing and anesthesiology staff statistically felt much less reassured than surgeons about the improvement. My own personal take on this (and as you know I favor a very liberal-yet-cautious approach to most things) was that it almost certainly must be making a difference for the good and of course concur with your opinion that it is only sensible to make use of any protocol which might reduce the chance for error. Hopefully studies will soon tell us how effectie it has been.

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