Surgical Counts in the Delivery Room

Poster PresentationPurpose for the ProgramAn opportunity existed to reduce or eliminate the risk of retained surgical items (RSIs) in response to the Joint Commission's October Sentinel Event Alert regarding RSIs. Within perinatal nursing there is a keen awareness that a discrepancy exists between the approaches to surgical counts in the perioperative suite versus the vaginal delivery room. It is very likely that during vaginal births, the surgical count error rate is greater than the overall 10% to 15% error rate noted by The Joint Commission.Proposed ChangeTo implement a highly reliable and standardized count process during all vaginal births that was more in line with structured counts of the perioperative suites.Implementation, Outcomes, and EvaluationAlthough limited, the literature demonstrated the need to first revise the facility wide count policy and specifically address the count process for vaginal births. Next, informal staff surveys indicated that the existing process lacked clear expectations, identified significant gaps in the process, and confirmed breaks in communication between nursing and provider staff. These surveys also revealed that the team approached the counts for vaginal births in a less formal manner than the surgical counts in the perioperative suite. Based on this information we implemented a standardized counting system that included a defined interdisciplinary communication requisite, streamlined the documentation, and provided global team educ...
Source: Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing - Category: Nursing Authors: Tags: Women's Health Source Type: research