Guidewire Retention after Central Venous Catheterisation: Prevention and Mitigation using Bow-Tie Analysis

Never events are typically rare but serious incidents in healthcare. They are perceived to be preventable, and include the retention of a surgical instrument in a patient's body. One such instrument is a "guidewire", which is... [ view full abstract ]

Never events are typically rare but serious incidents in healthcare. They are perceived to be preventable, and include the retention of a surgical instrument in a patient's body. One such instrument is a "guidewire", which is used to help introduce a catheter tube into the venous system of a patient. Following a number of guidewire retentions, these authors investigated contributing factors and examined mechanisms to reduce the risk of further occurrences. This paper presents the results in the form of a bow-tie analysis, which was found to provide an effective way to graphically display and examine the issue.