Trauma: Wound Care Case Study - Retained Foreign Body

Course overview

The failure to diagnose a foreign body is the most frequent wound-related medical error. This remains a critical issue from both patient safety and medical error perspectives. Although litigation related to wound care generally results in small verdicts or settlements, wound complications caused by medical errors resulting in adverse outcomes are high-frequency occurrences. In this activity, we present a case that involves the failure to diagnose the presence of a glass foreign body in a high-risk wound and discuss issues that commonly occur in the evaluation and diagnosis of retained foreign bodies.After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: recognize traumatic wounds at high risk for foreign bodies; create a standard approach to the evaluation of patients with an extremity laceration or puncture wound that includes a complete wound examination (for both foreign body and tendon injury); and integrate awareness of the reasons for the failure to diagnose traumatic wound foreign bodies into clinical practice to improve patient safety, improve documentation, and decrease the risk of exposure to medical malpractice.