• Tim Horberry, Yi-Chun Teng, James Ward, Vishal Patil, and P John Clarkson.
• Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
• Int J Risk Saf Med. 2014 Jan 1;26(1):23-37.

BackgroundCentral Venous Catheterisation (CVC) has occasionally been associated with cases of retained guidewires in patients after surgery. In theory, this is a completely avoidable complication; however, as with any human procedure, operator error leading to guidewires being occasionally retained cannot be fully eliminated.ObjectiveThe work described here investigated the issue in an attempt to better understand it both from an operator and a systems perspective, and to ultimately recommend appropriate safe design solutions that reduce guidewire retention errors.MethodsNine distinct methods were used: observations of the procedure, a literature review, interviewing CVC end-users, task analysis construction, CVC procedural audits, two human reliability assessments, usability heuristics and a comprehensive solution survey with CVC end-users.ResultsThe three solutions that operators rated most highly, in terms of both practicality and effectiveness, were: making trainees better aware of the potential guidewire complications and strongly emphasising guidewire removal in CVC training, actively checking that the guidewire is present in the waste tray for disposal, and standardising purchase of central line sets so that differences that may affect chances of guidewire loss is minimised.ConclusionsFurther work to eliminate/engineer out the possibility of guidewires being retained is proposed.

20 keywords...

hide…