scholarly journals Severe Ventral Erosion of Penis Caused by Indwelling Urethral Catheter and Inflation of Foley Balloon in Urethra—Need to Create List of “Never Events in Spinal Cord Injury” in order to Prevent These Complications from Happening in Paraplegic and Tetraplegic Patients

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subramanian Vaidyanathan ◽  
Bakul M. Soni ◽  
Peter L. Hughes ◽  
Gurpreet Singh ◽  
Tun Oo

Never Events are serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if the available preventative measures have been implemented. We propose that a list of “Never Events” is created for spinal cord injury patients in order to improve the quality of care. To begin with, following two preventable complications related to management of neuropathic bladder may be included in this list of “Never Events.” (i) Severe ventral erosion of glans penis and penile shaft caused by indwelling urethral catheter; (ii) incorrect placement of a Foley catheter leading to inflation of Foley balloon in urethra. If a Never Event occurs, health professionals should report the incident through hospital risk management system to National Patient Safety Agency's Reporting and Learning System, communicate with the patient, family, and their carer as soon as possible about the incident, undertake a comprehensive root cause analysis of what went wrong, how, and why, and implement the changes that have been identified and agreed following the root cause analysis.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subramanian Vaidyanathan ◽  
Bakul Soni ◽  
Peter Hughes ◽  
Gurpreet Singh ◽  
Tun Oo


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 185-190
Author(s):  
Forest W Arnold ◽  
Sarah Bishop ◽  
David Johnson ◽  
LaShawn Scott ◽  
Crystal Heishman ◽  
...  

Background: Placing a spinal stimulator for the purpose of restoring paralysed function is a novel procedure; however, paralysis predisposes people to infection. Preventing surgical site infections is critical to benefit this population. Objective: The objective of this study was to review the root cause analysis of postoperative wound infections by a hospital epidemiology team following implantation of epidural spinal cord neurostimulators in patients with chronic spinal cord injury. Methods: A team was assembled to review the case of every individual who had been enrolled to receive a neurostimulator at the facility. A root cause analysis was performed evaluating five categories: the patient; equipment; facility/environment; procedure; and personnel. Findings: The root cause analysis included 11 patients. Two patients became infected. Three others dehisced their wound without becoming infected. All patients were given preoperative antibiotics on time. A mean of 17 personnel were in the operating room during surgery. Vancomycin powder was used in the patients who either dehisced their wound or became infected. Conclusions: The root cause analysis provides guidance for other institutions performing the same novel procedure. This analysis did not reveal a direct association, but did generate several areas for improvement including increasing pre-surgical screening, cleaning transient equipment (e.g., computer screens), limiting traffic in the operating room, using new sterile instruments for each stage of the procedure, not reopening the back incision, not applying vancomycin powder, and using an antimicrobial envelope for the stimulator.



2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott E. Glaser ◽  
Rinoo Shah

Transforaminal epidural steroid injections have been shown to be associated with catastrophic neurologic complications secondary to spinal cord infarction. The reflexive, ad hoc response of practitioners to these injuries has been to recommend risk minimization strategies to prevent embolism of the injected particulate steroids and to use nonparticulate steroids. This focus on distal embolism as the sole or primary cause of catastrophic outcomes lacks conclusive supporting evidence and does not suffice to protect the patient from paraplegia as it fails to address the root cause of the complications. A root cause analysis of the procedure provides evidence that the injection technique itself—the “safe triangle”—creates a risk of arterial damage and sequelae leading to ischemia of the spinal cord. The evidence is strong that the only way to mitigate or eliminate the risk of paraplegia is to use a different technique to perform transforaminal injections: the Kambin triangle approach. This change in technique is the only definitive solution that addresses the root cause of these catastrophic sequelae associated with transforaminal epidural steroid injections. Key Words: Artery of Adamkiewicz, ischemic spinal cord injury, Kambin triangle, safe triangle, transforaminal epidural injection







Radiographics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 1434-1440
Author(s):  
Ashley S. Rosier ◽  
Laura C. Tibor ◽  
Mara A. Turner ◽  
Carrie J. Phillips ◽  
A. Nicholas Kurup


2005 ◽  
Vol 129 (10) ◽  
pp. 1246-1251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen S. Raab ◽  
Dana M. Grzybicki ◽  
Richard J. Zarbo ◽  
Frederick A. Meier ◽  
Stanley J. Geyer ◽  
...  

Abstract Context.—The utility of anatomic pathology discrepancies has not been rigorously studied. Objective.—To outline how databases may be used to study anatomic pathology patient safety. Design.—The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality funded the creation of a national anatomic pathology errors database to establish benchmarks for error frequency. The database is used to track more frequent errors and errors that result in more serious harm, in order to design quality improvement interventions intended to reduce these types of errors. In the first year of funding, 4 institutions (University of Pittsburgh, Henry Ford Hospital, University of Iowa, and Western Pennsylvania Hospital) reported cytologic-histologic correlation error data after standardizing correlation methods. Root cause analysis was performed to determine sources of error, and error reduction plans were implemented. Participants.—Four institutions self-reported anatomic pathology error data. Main Outcome Measures.—Frequency of cytologic-histologic correlation error, case type, cause of error (sampling or interpretation), and effect of error on patient outcome (ie, no harm, near miss, and harm). Results.—The institutional gynecologic cytologic-histologic correlation error frequency ranged from 0.17% to 0.63%, using the denominator of all Papanicolaou tests. Based on the nongynecologic cytologic-histologic correlation data, the specimen sites with the highest discrepancy frequency (by project site) were lung (ranging from 16.5% to 62.3% of all errors) and urinary bladder (ranging from 4.4% to 25.0%). Most errors detected by the gynecologic cytologic-histologic correlation process were no-harm events (ranging from 10.7% to 43.2% by project site). Root cause analysis identified sources of error on both the clinical and pathology sides of the process, and error intervention programs are currently being implemented to improve patient safety. Conclusions.—A multi-institutional anatomic pathology error database may be used to benchmark practices and target specific high-frequency errors or errors with high clinical impact. These error reduction programs have national import.





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