The Joint Commission Cracking Down on Wrong Twin Surgery.

Oakbrook Terrace, IL -  The Joint Commission (TJC) announced new hospital safety mandates yesterday after 27 more cases of wrong twin surgery were reported this week alone.  American hospitals documented 1,492 cases of wrong twin surgeries last year, a 114% increase from just two years prior."After years of nitpicking, we almost ran out of stuff to investigate.  This twin thing is going to keep us busy for years," said Dr. Alan Fleming, President of TJC.In one wrong twin surgery incident last week,  42-year-old Stan Wilson accidentally had his tonsils removed after the registrar failed to correctly enter Stan#2 into the hospital's computer system."I grew up in a time when you didn't question the doctors.  So, I got confused when they took my  Stan instead of  Stan#2 to surgery, but they're the doctors so I just figured they knew what they were doing," said the twin's mother Samantha.The Joint Commission hopes to put an end to wrong twin surgeries.Last week Jane and Jan Morrow took advantage of their similar names to get free breast enlargements.   Jan was whisked off to surgery after the registrar accidentally entered Jan instead of Jane.  Plastic surgeon James Cutsworth realized his error when Jane showed up for her post-operative appointment asking for something bigger."This is the fourth twin BOGO free boob job I've had to do in a year," said Dr. Cutsworth, who failed to catch the error despite following standard pre-surgery che...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: blogs