Academy, along with ABO and OMIC, establish new Performance Improvement Taskforce

Taskforce to tackle wrong site, wrong IOL surgery as first initiative

Published: 01/16

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA - (HealthTech Wire) - The American Academy of Ophthalmology, with the assistance of the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) and the Ophthalmic Mutual Insurance Company (OMIC), has announced the establishment of the Performance Improvement Taskforce, which will focus on physician competency, patient care and safety.

The taskforce will develop education-related activities that help physicians identify areas for improvement, provide practitioners with tools for measuring improvement, and evaluate and measure physician improvement in practice.

“All ophthalmologists strive to give their patients high-quality care,” said H. Dunbar Hoskins, executive vice president of the Academy. “This taskforce will help physicians take good practices and make them even better.”

One of the goals of the taskforce is to identify areas of physician practice that can be improved through the consistent use of easy-to-implement, evidenced-based, and common-sense protocols. Wrong eye and wrong IOL implant surgery were chosen as the taskforce’s first missions.

“Mistakes are extremely uncommon when it comes to wrong site or wrong IOL implant, but they are serious” said Joseph Caprioli, MD FACS, chairman of the taskforce and Professor of Ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles. “Simple steps that begin in the office and end in the operating room can help ophthalmologists eliminate rare occurrences of serious mistakes.”

Dr. Caprioli referred to a retrospective study in the Archives of Ophthalmology that documents surgical confusion. Of the 106 cases covering 23 years studied, wrong IOL implant and wrong eye surgery were the most common mistakes by physicians and their teams. These were followed by wrong eye blocks, wrong procedure or wrong patient, and wrong corneal transplants. Had the Universal Protocol been used, 85 percent of the surgical confusions could have been avoided, the study concluded.

In 2008, the taskforce will develop an online CME activity that physicians can use to minimize wrong site surgery and wrong IOL implant. The resulting tool will allow physicians to: