A Survey of the Use of Time-Out Protocols in Emergency Medicine

Although the time-out requirement has been in effect since 2004, more than 1 in 10 of ED physicians in this sample of ED physician leaders were unaware of it. According to the respondents, medical errors preventable by time-outs were rare; however, time-outs may be useful for certain procedures, particularly when there is a risk of wrong-site, wrong-patient, or wrong-procedure medical errors.