A wrong-site surgery scare prompted leaders at a Pennsylvania surgery center to take up a new weapon in the fight against surgical errors: a video camera.

In a 14-minute home movie you can watch here, the staff at Reading Hospital SurgiCenter at Spring Ridge demonstrate how they verify each patient's identity, procedure and surgical site several times before the first incision is made: from pre-op registration to the site-marking process to the final pre-operative time out. After watching the video, everyone in the facility— from the receptionist to the surgical nurses — sees exactly how staff are supposed to verify the correct procedure at the correct site on the correct patient, says Director Pam Ertel, RN, BSN, CNOR, RNFA, FABC, CASC, and Director of Nursing Alice Heiser, BSN, RN, CAPA.

Also recognizing the power of visual media to educate, the physicians and staff at Mississippi Surgical Center in Jackson put on their dancing shoes and shot a series of music videos to raise awareness of infection prevention. Administrator Judy Gray, RN, MBA, CASC, and Quality Assurance Coordinator Lea Anna Tice, RN, BSN, say they've gotten requests from several other healthcare facilities to use the humorous videos to promote hand hygiene and other important infection prevention practices. You can watch "Another Germ Bites the Dust," "Stop in the Name of Germs," "Baby Got Bacteria" and the rest of their performances here.

Irene Tsikitas

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