Getting off on the wrong foot Doctor-patient miscommunication: A risk for wrong site surgery

Miscommunication between surgeon and patient can have far reaching consequences including the potential for wrong-site surgery (WSS). In the course of routine foot and ankle clinics, particular inconsistencies were noted between the terms used by surgeons and patients to label individual toes with t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFoot and ankle surgery Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 201 - 202
Main Authors BECKINGSALE, Thomas B, GREISS, Magdi E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Amsterdam Elsevier 01.09.2011
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Communication
Diseases of the osteoarticular system
Female
Foot - surgery
Humans
Male
Medical Errors
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Risk Factors
Terminology as Topic
Toes
Human
Treatment
Miscommunication
Surgery
Risk factor
Rheumatology
Wrong-site surgery
Foot
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Summary:Miscommunication between surgeon and patient can have far reaching consequences including the potential for wrong-site surgery (WSS). In the course of routine foot and ankle clinics, particular inconsistencies were noted between the terms used by surgeons and patients to label individual toes with the potential for miscommunication. To investigate this phenomenon 100 consecutive patients were asked to label their own toes. The first fifty labelled their left foot, the subsequent fifty their right. Errors in communication were common with an average frequency of greater than one in 10. Miscommunication was most likely when patients used numbers to label their toes, accounting for 93% of all errors. As a result we recommend that healthcare professionals avoid the use of numbers to label toes when communicating with patients to help avoid miscommunication.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:1268-7731
1460-9584
DOI:10.1016/j.fas.2010.10.001