Welcome to Safety in Spine Surgery Month 2024. Join us on social media throughout the month of April as we focus on spine surgery safety. We will share safety resources, including downloadable Best Practice Guidelines and top talks from previous years. Learn the latest techniques relevant to this critical topic from experts in the field.

Watch for exclusive content throughout the month of April on your preferred social platform.

S3P Social Links:

For a more in-depth study of safety best practices and innovations, join us in New York City at the Safety in Spine Surgery Summit on May 31, 2024. Read More >

Join an expert faculty for a fresh look at optimizing safety in spine surgery! We’ll explore new topics such as:

  • How Can Enabling Technologies Improve Outcomes?
  • Avoiding Complications with New Techniques

Plus, bring your whole care team for discussions on:

  • Building and Maintaining an Expert OR Staff
  • Collaborating with the Next Generation

Find out more details and register today!

Keynote Speaker: Nick Petrie

Petrie Nick-Keynote-SafetyAuthor, researcher, and consultant Nick Petrie specializes in leadership development for senior executives and helping organizations build a healthy, high-performance culture. Co-Author of Work Without Stress, Nick believes that performance and excellence do not have to be synonymous with burnout. Born and raised in New Zealand, he has significant international experience living and working in Japan, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, and Dubai. Past clients include Google, NASA, Walmart, Deloitte, Red Bull, Kellogg’s, Workday, Qantas and Comcast.

Nick is a proud father to four sons, and a three-time cancer survivor. He and his wife recently returned to New Zealand to raise their family in his beautiful homeland.

Browse the Safety Summit brochure and more information >

The Safety in Spine Surgery Project (S3P) is pleased to announce the 10 winners of the Safety in Spine Surgery Month Call for Abstracts / Call for Projects.

These award winners will present their work during our two live webinars in April.

April 14 Webinar | Best Practice Guidelines & Checklists to Make Your OR Safer
  • Artificial Neural Network Model for Prediction of Perioperative Blood Transfusion in Adult Spinal Deformity Surgery
    Rafael De la Garza Ramos, MD
    Montefiore Medical Center
  • Formulation of a Web-based Spine Surgery Checklist
    Arvind G. Kulkarni, MD
    Mumbai Spine Scoliosis & Disc Replacement Centre
  • Post-operative Steroids in Patients with Severe Neuromuscular Scoliosis Undergoing Posterior Spinal Fusion Reduced Opioid Usage by 70%
    Nicholas Fletcher, MD
    Children's Healthcare of Atlanta/Emory University
  • Starting Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) from Scratch at an Academic Institution Spine Program
    Luke Harris
    University of South Alabama
  • Best Practice Consensus Guidelines for Diagnosing, Treating, and Preventing Surgical Site Infections in High-risk Scoliosis
    Paul Sponseller, MD
    Johns Hopkins Medicine
April 21 Webinar | Robotics & Navigation in Spine Surgery: Views Across Generations of Spine Surgeons
  • A Radiographic Comparison of Spinal Navigation and Freehand Techniques in Thoracolumbar Pedicle Screw Insertion
    Mohammed Munim
    Midwest Orthopaedics at RUSH, Rush University Medical Center
  • Augmented Reality to Increase Safety in Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion with Total Navigation
    Fabian Sommer, MD
    Weill Cornell Medicine/New York Presbyterian
  • Novel 2D Long Film Imaging Utility to Avoid Wrong Level Spinal Surgery
    Rajiv Dharnipragada, BA
    University of Minnesota
  • Safety and Feasibility of Augmented Reality-assisted Resection of Benign Intradural Extramedullary Tumors
    Fabian Sommer, MD
    Weill Cornell Medicine/New York Presbyterian
  • The Adjunct Use of Descending Neurogenic-evoked Potentials When Transcranial Motor-Evoked Potentials Degrade into Warning Criteria: Minimizing False-Positive Events
    Scott J. Luhmann, MD
    Washington University

We had some amazing videos sharing the message about safety in spine surgery, with both top-level commentary as well as practical tips. This week our daily safety tip videos were seen by over 11,000 people, and our overall audience grew by 40%. Highlights included:

  • Dr. Lehman asked us, “Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than to have surgery?,” in his video on Safety By the Numbers.
  • Prof Carl-Eric Aubin shared about the biomechanical considerations in assessing spinal instrumentation for safety.
  • Vafa Jamali from Zimmer Biomet shared about their support of the Safety month.
  • Dr. Hey shared about the importance of spine surgery checklists, including a link to the downloadable checklists he’s created.
  • And finally, Dr. Elowitz explained the connections between communication, patient safety, and medical malpractice.

Several of these daily tip videos are taken from longer talks presented at past Safety in Spine Surgery Summits. Did you know we have a library of these talks that you can browse & watch for free? Visit the videos tab on our website, or start here with the 2020 Safety Summit videos.

We also had over 500 people register for the April 15 webinar Checklists & Guidelines Which Make Spine Surgery Safer, which featured 4 of our Award Winners for the Best New Methodologies and Techniques to Enhance Safety in Spine Surgery, as well as a “who’s who” of surgeon leaders representing spine safety efforts from leading societies including the SRS, AANS, and POSNA.

We want to thank this week’s contributors, as well as this week’s partner organizations: NewYork-Presbyterian, Medtronic, Zimmer Biomet, NeuroPoint Alliance, Hey Clinic, and CareGuard.

We want to hear from you, too! Post safety tips or questions on your own social media—tag us, and you might win a $100 gift card! Winners are drawn each week from all social media channels.

View all this week’s videos here.

View the videos from presenters at the 4th Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit. Learn insights and practical techniques for improvement of safety in spine surgery from experts in the medical field as well as other fields.

Click here to view videos

The Safety in Spine Surgery project was thrilled to have hosted the 3rd Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit on Friday, April 20, 2018 at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The event brought together a diverse audience of spine surgeons, OR directors and hospital executives from across the nation to network and learn about the numerous safety and quality advances that are being made in the field.

This year’s theme was “Toward New Rules of Engagement for an Increasingly Complex Spine World.” Dr. Michael Vitale (pictured in photo, right), chaired the event and was joined by the event’s co-chair Dr. Lawrence Lenke (pictured in photo, left).