Why are sterile, disposable, felt tip pens not meeting the JCAHO requirements?
Institutions around the country find that surgeons mark patients differently. For example, sites can be marked with an “X”, arrow, circle, “yes”, physician initials, dot and a variety of other markings. In addition, even when facilities have attempted to try to standardize within a facility, a facility within the same geographic region has not instituted a like policy resulting in great variability. This variability has led to errors and subsequent wrong site surgeries. While there have been some initiatives to have physicians “sign their name” to patients, many physicians object. Many physicians feel that writing their name on a patient is degrading and in circumstances such as pediatrics, simply not possible. Also, both physicians and other operating room personnel such as nurses frequently perform surgeries at different institutions. If these institutions have processes in place that use different types of site markings this can result in unfortunate errors. “What type of mark is ma
