SRES40JUN24

TheWeekInCongress.com

Week Ending June 24, 2005

Senate Resolution 40 Supporting the goals and ideas of National Time Out Day to promote the adoption of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations’ universal protocol for preventing errors in the operating room.

BRIEF

A 2000 report weighed the 44,000 to 98,000 deaths due to medical errors against 40 million inpatient and 31 million outpatient surgeries in a year.

The Resolution preamble explains that one solution from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is for surgical teams to take a ‘time out’ before performing a surgery to “verify the patient's identity, the procedure to be performed, and the site of the procedure”.

The Resolution supports the goals and efforts of the organizations and individuals trying to implement the ‘time out’ procedure and who try to reduce medical errors in other ways.

Sponsor: Senator Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA)

Vote: Passed Senate by Unanimous Consent (June 22, 2005)

Cost to the taxpayers: No discernible cost.

MORE INFORMATION

Whereas according to an Institute of Medicine report entitled `To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System', published in 2000, between 44,000 and 98,000 hospitalized people in the United States die each year due to medical errors, and untold thousands more suffer injury or illness as a result of preventable errors;

Whereas there are more than 40,000,000 inpatient surgery procedures and 31,000,000 outpatient surgery procedures performed annually in the United States;

Whereas for the first time, nurses, surgeons, and hospitals throughout the country are being required by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to adopt a common set of operating room procedures in order to help curb the alarming number of deaths and injuries due to medical errors;

Whereas the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has developed a universal protocol, endorsed by more than 50 national healthcare organizations, which calls for surgical teams to call a `time out' before surgeries begin in order to verify the patient's identity, the procedure to be performed, and the site of the procedure;

Whereas 4,579 accredited hospitals, 1,261 ambulatory care facilities, and 131 accredited office-based surgery centers were required by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to adopt the universal protocol beginning July 1, 2004;

Whereas the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses has created an Internet website and distributed 55,000 tool kits to healthcare professionals throughout the country to assist them in implementing the universal protocol; and

Whereas the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Hospital Association, and the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management celebrate National Time Out Day on June 22, 2005, to promote the adoption of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' universal protocol for preventing errors in the operating room: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate--

(1) supports the goals and ideas of National Time Out Day, as designated by the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses and endorsed by the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Hospital Association, and the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management, to promote the adoption of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' universal protocol for preventing errors in the operating room; and

(2) congratulates perioperative nurses and representatives of surgical teams for working together to reduce medical errors to ensure the improved health and safety of surgical patients.

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