Wake Up Safe Update
By Manon Haché, MD, FRCPC
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
Columbia University Medical Center
Wake Up Safe (WUS) is a Patient Safety Organization, as designated by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Since the last update to this newsletter in summer 2017, it has grown from 32 to 36 participating institutions.
Last year, Wake Up Safe updated its key driver diagram. The global aim of the organization remains to eliminate preventable harm in children undergoing anesthesia.
WUS strives to grow and strengthen the organization, collaborate with other organizations, particularly with our surgical colleagues, standardize reporting of adverse events to our database, continue to provide background knowledge, skills and analytical framework for QI and safety analytics, encourage quality improvement work in the various member institutions and disseminate the improvements noted to the pediatric anesthesia community.
The Wake Up Safe educational curriculum has continued with both fundamental and advanced workshops in safety analytics and quality improvement. Workshops are also available to non-Wake Up Safe members at the annual SPA meeting. Workshops are being expanded into international locations. A workshop was given in India and was very well received.
With new members joining, we have continued to provide site visits to identify potential best practices to be communicated to other institutions as well as to clarify any barriers to improvement work and to communicate these findings to hospital leadership. Member institutions that have participated in site visits in the past may be revisited to assess their progress. We are also planning to include on site quality improvement coaching and education.
Wake Up Safe tracks the QI capability of its member institutions through milestones and objectives. This helps the group tailor its education and support to the group’s individual needs and track our QI capability over time. We have also developed change packets to address one of the most common and preventable serious adverse events reported to the Wake Up Safe database: medication errors.
Publications since the last newsletter update include:
- Severe Outcomes of Pediatric Perioperative Adverse Events Occurring in Operating Rooms Compared to Off‐site Anesthetizing Locations in the Wake Up Safe Database. Uffman JC, Tumin D, Beltran RJ, Tobias JD. Paediatr Anaesth. 2019 Jan;29(1):38-43
- Adverse Events in Radiation Oncology: A case series from Wake Up Safe, the pediatric anesthesia quality improvement initiative. Christensen RE, Nause-Osthoff RC, Waldman JC, Spratt DE, Hearn JWD, Paediatr Anaesth. 2019 Mar;29(3):265-270)
- Pediatric Perioperative Cardiac Arrest, Death in the Off Hours: A Report From Wake Up Safe, The Pediatric Quality Improvement Initiative. Christensen RE, Lee AC, Gowen MS, Rettiganti MR, Deshpande JK, Morray JP. Anesth Analg. 2018 Aug;127(2):472-477
- Incidence and Causes of Adverse Events in Diagnostic Radiological Studies Requiring Anesthesia in the Wake Up Safe Registry. Khawaja AA, Tumin D, Beltran RJ, Tobias JD, Uffman JC. J Patient Saf. 2018 Mar 8)
The Wake Up Safe website was updated last year and is a good source of information regarding Wake Up Safe as well as suggested reading.
In conclusion, Wake Up Safe continues to grow as a patient safety organization. It strives to continue to advocate for patient safety and decrease preventable patient safety events. We continue to encourage our participating institutions to engage in quality improvement projects, participate in peer evaluation site visits, as well as learn Safety Analytics and Quality Improvement methodology.
