UroToday.com The Institute of Medicine has drawn professional and public attention to the safety of patients in our health care system through two prominent publications. The Joint Commission has responded by developing a series of National Patient Safety Goals that must be followed to achieve accreditation.

For patients undergoing surgery and procedures, the JCAHO developed the Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong Site, Wrong Procedure, Wrong Person SurgeryTM which outlines a number of essential practices designed to ensure patient safety, including the designation of “minimal risk” and “more than minimal risk” procedures.

As a result, without data to show the contrary, many institutions and practices may judge the 2 most commonly performed office procedures, cystoscopy and transrectal ultrasound guided biopsies (TRUSBX), to represent more than minimal risk procedures, and thus be subjected to the same requirements as a major surgical procedure.

The authors performed a prospective quality assurance study to evaluate the true risk associated with these 2 commonly performed procedures in order to address the concern that these would be considered as more than minimal risk.

Written by Surena F. Matin, MD as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com

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