Anaes · Patient safety, human factors & CRM
Patient safety, human factors & CRM
Also known as Patient safety · Human factors · Crisis resource management · CRM · Surgical safety checklist · Never Events · Non-technical skills · Second victim
The patient safety science is the study of the harm and its prevention in the healthcare. The framework rests on the systems approach (the Swiss cheese model, the active and the latent failures), the human factors (the cognitive load, the fatigue, the environment, the equipment), the crisis resource management (the leadership, the communication, the situational awareness, the task management), the tools (the WHO surgical safety checklist, the time-out, the briefings and the debriefings), the non-technical skills (the ANTS), the critical incident analysis (the root cause, the learning), and the second-victim support. The anaesthetist is the leader in the perioperative safety.
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8 MCQs with explanations
Target exams
Red flags
Meet the patient
A 4-year-old for bilateral myringotomies receives the wrong ear. The surgeon operated on the side marked on the whiteboard, not the side in the consent form. No time-out was done because the list was running late. The parents are distraught, the registrar is shattered, and the coroner will ask one question: why was the checklist skipped?[6]
This is a Never Event — wrong-site surgery — and it is the canonical systems failure. No single person made a single error. The defences (consent verification, site marking, time-out, team confirmation) all failed in sequence. The lesson is not who to blame — it is how the holes aligned.[6][7]
You have read the opening of this topic. The complete unit — every section and its primary-source references — is part of the Anaesthesia fellowship atlas.
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- [1]Younis Z, et al. Implementation of Surgical Safety Checklists in Orthopaedic Surgery: A Narrative Review of Compliance, Barriers, and Future Improvements Cureus, 2025.PMID 41541994
- [2]Wen L, et al. Crisis resource management in nonoperating room anesthesia Curr Opin Anaesthesiol, 2026.PMID 42228455
- [3]Paterson E, et al. Occupational stress in anaesthetists: a narrative review of psychosocial risk management using a human factors systems approach Br J Anaesth, 2026.PMID 42156312
- [4]Morató O, Peña-Salazar C, Grande L, et al. Surgeons' stress assessment after surgical mortality: first international validated survey (STRESSURG study) Langenbecks Arch Surg, 2026.PMID 42265303
- [5]Madden M, et al. The Difficult Airway Society 2025 Guidelines Education Package: bridging the translational gap Br J Anaesth, 2026.PMID 41956869
- [6]Hershfeld B, et al. Optimizing Surgical Time-outs in Orthopaedic Surgery: History, Challenges, and Strategies for Improvement J Patient Saf, 2026.PMID 42241582
- [7]McTighe SP, et al. Optimization and Prevention of Error in Surgical Site Identification Dermatol Surg, 2026.PMID 42337803
- [8]Boldis AM, et al. High-fidelity simulation programs in ICU-related ethical non-technical skills training: A narrative review J Crit Care Med (Targu Mures), 2026.PMID 42153104