Background: Wrong site surgery (WSS) is a potentially preventable adverse event in healthcare.
Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of the 9,129 claims managed by the Professional Liability Service of the Catalonian's Colleges of Physicians from 1986 to 2017.
Results: We identified 57 claims for WSS (1.78 per year), with an increase in the final ten years (0.92 to 3.83). One patient identification error corresponded to the anesthetic procedure; surgery involving fingers (17.5%), backbone (15.8%), knee (12.3%) and teeth (12.3%) was predominant. Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology was the specialty most involved (54.4%), being tooth extraction, vertebral disc prolapsed surgery and finger bone resection the most frequent procedures with seven cases each (12.3%). Claims followed criminal (16 cases, 28.1%) or civil proceedings (9 cases, 15.8%), with two guilty verdicts on a civil basis. The frequency of claims leading to compensation was 59.6%, averaged 9,210.23 euros per claim, resolved through extrajudicial (65.6%) or judicial channels (50.0%).
Conclusion: WSS events cannot be overlooked and shows high incidence of claims liability rates, which highlights the need to increase efforts to ensure patient safety in this area.
Keywords: Analysis of claims. Medical errors. Wrong-site surgery..