June 13 is National Time Out Day, which emphasizes the importance of surgical teams taking a “time out” to confirm vital patient information before beginning every invasive procedure. Studies suggest that, in the United States, somewhere between 44,000 and 100,000 people die each year due to medical error. Many more are seriously harmed.
One example is a famous case involving 51-year-old Willie King, a diabetic who was scheduled to have his lower right leg amputated at a Florida hospital in 1995. Through a series of mistakes, his lower left leg was removed by accident. King later had to have the correct leg amputated at another hospital. Surgical “time outs” are part of Piedmont Healthcare’s Always Safe program, designed to create a culture of reliability, ensuring consistent use of evidence-based safety practices.
According to Matthew Schreiber, M.D., if hospitals would practice the Always Safe program that Piedmont has in place today, they could reduce preventable events of patient harm by as much as 80% within three years.
"Errors happen because imperfect humans interact with imperfect processes,” Dr. Schreiber says. “Errors have nothing to do with skill level, training, experience or desire. On average in healthcare, there are 8.3 errors associated with the ‘bad thing’ that happens, and the greatest opportunity is in engineering processes which minimize the chance for error.”
Safety is a part of the Piedmont culture. Every employee – physicians, nurses, techs and even those in non-clinical positions – is required to attend mandatory safety training as part of our Always Safe program. For example, routine steps are taken to ensure our staff confirms various information on patients before treating them. This includes verifying the name, date of birth, medication, dosage, procedure, etc.
Employees are also empowered to speak up or question a manager or physician if they feel something is “not quite right.” “We’ve made a promise to make safety our top priority at Piedmont,” Dr. Schreiber says. “Our patients expect the very best care when they visit one of our hospitals, clinics or doctors’ offices. We give them the same care we would our own families.”
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