Surgical Fires

This Risk Management lecture on Surgical Fire examines what constitutes a surgical fire, which can occur in, on or around a patient during a medical or surgical procedure.  Although quite rare, surgical fires have the potential to cause significant harm to patients and healthcare professionals.

Target Audience

Surgeons, surgical techs, nurse anesthetists, advanced practice providers, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, social workers, respiratory therapists, patient transporters, patient experience specialists, security officers, human resources staff, hospital leaders and other interested clinical and nonclinical employees.

Learning Objectives

  • Identify high-risk settings where a surgical fire may be prevented with proper communication and use of risk management tools and resources. 
  • Implement strategies to prevent fires in the operating room. 
Additional information
Bibliography: 

Kowalski, S. L., & Anthony, M. (2017). CE: Nursing's evolving role in patient safety. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 117(2), 34-48.

Kelly, F. E., Bailey, C. R., Aldridge, P., Brennan, P. A., Hardy, R. P., Henrys, P., ... & Taft, D. (2021). Fire safety and emergency evacuation guidelines for intensive care units and operating theatres: for use in the event of fire, flood, power cut, oxygen supply failure, noxious gas, structural collapse or other critical incidents: Guidelines from the Association of Anaesthetists and the Intensive Care Society. Anaesthesia, 76(10), 1377-1391.
 

Related Topics

Medical Errors: Promoting a Culture of Patient Safety
Medical Errors: Promoting a Culture of Patient Safety satisfies continuing education relicensure requirements on the prevention of medical errors for Florida doctors. The purpose of this course is to promote patient safety and improve patient outcomes by providing an overview of the safety concerns facing healthcare systems today, including statistics and background on the magnitude of the problem and error reduction, prevention and root cause analysis. This course includes information relating to the five most misdiagnosed conditions during the previous biennium, as determined by the Florida Board.
Course Summary
Available credit: 
  • 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
  • 1.00 General certificate of attendance
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Clinical Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists and Mental Health Counselors
  • 1.00 Nurse Practitioners
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Nursing
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Pharmacy
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Respiratory Therapy
Course opens: 
02/28/2025
Course expires: 
02/27/2028
Part of: 
Risk Management Online Series

Faculty

Rosa Gonzalez, ARNP
Manager, Patient Safety Simulation Lab
Baptist Health Medical Group 
Miami, Fl.

Wilmer Mata, M.D. 
General Surgeon
Baptist Health Medical Group 
Miami, Fl.

Beverly Pastora, CRNA
Baptist Health Medical Group 
Miami, Fl.

Rosa Gonzalez, ARNP, and Beverly Pastora, CRNA, faculty for this educational activity, have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies* to disclose, and have indicated that the presentations or discussions will not include off-label or unapproved product usage.

Wilmer Mata, M.D., director of this educational activity, has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies* to disclose, and has indicated that the presentation or discussion will not include off-label or unapproved product usage.

Non-faculty contributors and others involved in the planning, development, and editing/review of the content have no relevant financial relationships to disclose with ineligible companies*.

*Ineligible companies - Companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

Disclosure Policy and Disclaimer

Baptist Health South Florida is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Baptist Health has been re-surveyed by the ACCME and awarded Commendation for 6 years as a provider of CME for physicians.
              
Baptist Health South Florida designates this enduring material for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Available Credit

  • 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
  • 1.00 General certificate of attendance
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Clinical Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists and Mental Health Counselors
  • 1.00 Nurse Practitioners
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Nursing
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Pharmacy
  • 1.00 Florida Board of Respiratory Therapy
Please login or register for a Baptist Health CME account to take this course.

Required Hardware/Software

PC/Mac Users
PC/Mac Users

This site is supported on the most recent stable releases of the following browsers:

Click Here to Download Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge
Safari
Safari
Moxilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mobile Users
Mobile Users

This site is supported on the following mobile devices:

  • Apple iOS mobile devices running iOS 10 or later
  • Android mobile devices running Android 4.4 or later, with the latest release of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox
Technical Support
Technical Support

If you are experiencing technical difficulties or have received an error message, please send an email to [email protected] and include a print screen of the error message, your browser name and version, username and URL where the error occurred. You can expect a response within 48 hours.