Photo gallery: Faculty, staff celebrate National Time Out Day

On Wednesday, Michigan Medicine team members celebrated National Time Out Day, which encourages health systems to refocus on time outs and re-emphasize their importance.

What are time outs?

It’s a Joint Commission-mandated event — and a best practice — that takes place before every procedure or surgery.

“A time out is a script that you read from when everyone is in the room that confirms a patient’s name, date of birth, the site and side of the procedure, the form of any anesthesia being used, fire safety concerns and more,” said Sreelatha Ponnaluri-Wears, project manager in the Michigan Medicine Quality Department and lead of the Periprocedural Safety and Quality Improvement Program, or PSQIP.

In short, it reinforces anything that those in a room need to know before a procedure begins.

Learn more about time outs — and how the idea behind them can be used in any line of work — by checking out this story.