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21% Of Hand Surgeons Have Operated On Wrong Site

A report in the February 2003 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery says that 21% of 1,050 hand surgeons surveyed said they had operated on the wrong site at least once in their surgical careers.

The study authors, Dr. Eric Meinberg and Dr. Peter Stern at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio, found that nearly two thirds of the mistakes occurred on the wrong finger and the rest involved the wrong hand completely.

According to the authors, “Wrong-site surgery is a preventable and largely indefensible surgical complication.”

In 1998, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) launched a campaign to reduce wrong site procedures. Along with verbally verifying the intended surgical site and procedure in the operating room, the AAOS recommended that surgeons simply sign the correct surgical site with their initials before surgery. The authors say 70% of the surgeons surveyed had heard of the campaign but only 45% had changed their procedures.

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