title: Outcome of 6 years of protocol use for preventing wrong site office surgery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patient safety is emerging as an integral part of the overall strategy to improve health care in the United States. Wrong site surgery is correctly noted to be a sentinel event and great efforts must be made to avoid it.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We sought to determine the incidence of wrong site surgery after implementation of a preoperative protocol in patients presenting for treatment of skin cancer at a high-volume, Joint Commission-accredited, tertiary referral center for dermatologic surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective chart review was performed of 7983 cases performed on patients presenting for treatment of skin cancer in the office setting.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were no cases of wrong site surgery. There were, however, 18 cases of failure to identify the original biopsy site (cancer site).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This was a retrospective study done at one cancer center.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Integration of a correct surgery site protocol into a daily patient care model is a useful step in preventing occurrences of wrong site dermatologic surgery.
authors.affiliation: Skin Cancer Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. Electronic address: johnthree@gmail.com.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Starling
authors.affiliation: Skin Cancer Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; Department of Dermatology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio.
authors.forename: Brett M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Coldiron
mesh_terms: D000556:Ambulatory Surgical Procedures; D002985:Clinical Protocols; D006801:Humans; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015580:Mohs Surgery / Q000379:methods*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010355:Patient Identification Systems; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods*; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*