Preventing "Dead In Bed Syndrome" with Patients After Surgery: Healthcare Provider Survey 85% Want Safety Checklist

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Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Oct 13, 2011, 10:17 ET

CHICAGO, Oct. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In a survey conducted among healthcare providers, almost all the respondents (85%) favor the development and use of safety checklists.

"Because of this strong desire of healthcare professionals to have a checklist," says Michael Wong of the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS), "PPAHS is putting together a working group to create a checklist targeted towards patient-controlled analgesia." This checklist would reinforce the need for continuous electronic monitoring of oxygenation and ventilation.

"We should stop the found dead in bed syndrome," says Dr. Andrew Kofke (Co-Director at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Neurocritical Care Program). "The use of a well-constructed checklist that ensures proper procedures are followed in patient-controlled analgesia would enhance patient safety."

An example of a checklist is the surgical checklist that was created and is being promoted by the World Health Organization(1) and through the efforts of Dr. Atul Gawande (Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and General and Endocrine Surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital).(2)

"Avoidable failures are common and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating," Dr. Gawande says. "And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably."

"A checklist would help ensure that necessary procedures are followed when a patient is provided with a PCA pump," explains Dr. Elliot Krane (Director, Pediatric Pain Management at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford).

"When there is a handoff of a patient from team to team, or location to location (such as OR to PACU, OR to ICU, ICU to OR, etc.), I have been impressed that there are times in which things fall through the cracks, from relatively minor things like missed doses of antibiotics, to critical things like ventilators not being properly connected, potentially resulting in hypoxia," says Dr. Krane.

About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is an advocacy group devoted to improving patient health and safety. PPAHS is composed of physicians, patients, individuals, and organizations. For a list of supporters and survey report, please visit http://ppahs.wordpress.com/

(1)http://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/ss_checklist/en/index.html

(2)http://gawande.com/the-checklist-manifesto

SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety