Operating Room Emergency Manuals Improve Patient Safety: A Systemic Review.

Wayne R Simmons,Jeff Huang

doi:10.7759/cureus.4888

Abstract

The aim of this review is to highlight the latest movements surrounding Emergency Manual (EM) implementation nationally and abroad within perioperative medicine with a focus on studies linking EM to patient safety. This is a comprehensive literature review which includes a brief introduction to the definition and history of EM as well as an overview of a successful implementation strategy, international influence and correlations to patient safety. The recent changes in healthcare and healthcare reimbursement have directed the focus throughout healthcare to quality improvement and patient safety. The potential of EMs' application to improve patient outcomes has influential implications both on patient outcomes as well as reimbursements. This study includes relevant citations with the large majority published in the last five years. EM implementation in healthcare has grown within the US and internationally over the last decade. Prominent organizations have created EMs containing principles of evidence-based medicine and widely accepted protocols that have been endorsed by major entities in the medical field. Successful implementation strategies primarily focus on different forms of simulation training and have been found to increase adherence to protocols through EM use. An increasing amount of educational institutions and healthcare facilities worldwide are perpetuating such implementation and a growing number of successful cases are being published.

Highlights

BackgroundWhat are emergency manuals?For the purposes of this article we will not delve into any in-depth definition for the term “Emergency Manual” (EM)
Other articles have been highly efficient in doing so and seem to have mostly come to a consensus, and in this article we will follow the established pattern of reference to any cognitive aid or crisis manual as "Emergency Manual": A tool made to command all resources at hand in order to provide an anesthesia delivery plan in concert with members of the anesthesia care team and operating room personnel in the aid of dynamic decision-making [1,2,3]
Prime examples of EM directly affecting patient safety in the perioperative arena include Surgical Safety Checklists (SSC) that have been shown through multiple studies to significantly reduce rates of death and complications by more than 50% [38,40,41,42]

Summary

Introduction

BackgroundWhat are emergency manuals?For the purposes of this article we will not delve into any in-depth definition for the term “Emergency Manual” (EM). Other articles have been highly efficient in doing so and seem to have mostly come to a consensus, and in this article we will follow the established pattern of reference to any cognitive aid or crisis manual as "Emergency Manual": A tool made to command all resources at hand in order to provide an anesthesia delivery plan in concert with members of the anesthesia care team and operating room personnel in the aid of dynamic decision-making [1,2,3]. In this article we will investigate and accentuate the relationship between EMs and the reason that they exist within healthcare, namely, to enhance patient safety. How to cite this article Simmons W R, Huang J (June 12, 2019) Operating Room Emergency Manuals Improve Patient Safety: A Systemic Review.

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Conclusion