Resources

Wound healing is a critical outcome in surgery, and postoperative wound disruption is a serious complication. Surgical incisions are acute wounds that activate the healing process.

Hypoglycemia is defined as any blood glucose less than 4.0 mmol/L. When blood glucose decreases to 2.8 mmol/L, cognitive impairment ensues (Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA), Clayton, Woo, Yale 2013). Hypoglycemia is a widely recognized cause of acute, potentially fatal events.

Sepsis is defined as: "life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by dysregulated host response to infection" (Singer et al., 2016). It affects neonatal, pediatric, and adult patients worldwide. Differentiated from an uncomplicated infection by virtue of the dysregulated host response and acute organ dysfunction, sepsis can present as or progress to septic shock, recently redefined as: "a subset of sepsis in which particularly profound circulatory, cellular and metabolic abnormalities are associated with a greater risk of mortality than with sepsis alone." (Singer et al., 2016). Maternal sepsis is a life-threatening condition defined as an organ dysfunction caused by an infection during pregnancy, delivery, puerperium, or after an abortion (Escobar et al., 2020).

Many adult hospital inpatients require intravenous (IV) fluid therapy to prevent or correct problems with their fluid and/or electrolyte status. This may be because they cannot meet their normal needs through oral or enteral routes (related for example to swallowing problems or gastrointestinal dysfunction) or because they have unusual fluid and/or electrolyte deficits or demands caused by illness or injury (e.g., high gastrointestinal or renal losses).

A retained foreign body is a patient safety incident in which a surgical object is accidentally left in a body cavity or operation wound following a procedure (Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI), 2016a).

Delirium is a state of confusion that comes on very suddenly and lasts hours to days. It can cause changes in a person’s ability to stay alert, remember, be oriented to time or place, speak or reason clearly.

Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) can be divided into upper tract infections, which involve the kidneys (pyelonephritis), and lower tract infections, which involve the bladder (cystitis), urethra (urethritis), and prostate (prostatitis). Infection may spread from one site to the other. Although urethritis and prostatitis are infections that involve the urinary tract, the term UTI usually refers to pyelonephritis and cystitis (Imam, 2020a).

Birth injuries are those sustained during the birth process, which includes labor and delivery. They may be avoidable, or they may be unavoidable and occur despite skilled and competent obstetric care, as in an especially hard or prolonged labor or with an abnormal presentation (Prazad et al., 2019).

Use this activity for leaders and board members to spark safety conversations and collective action toward safer care.