RISK MANAGER
A permanent neurological deficit may lead to an issue you will have to resolve. In spinal surgeries, negative outcomes commonly result in neurological problems than can be serious or even permanent. Even if the deficit can be corrected, the hospital frequently realizes additional expenses. Law suites and settlements resulting from less-than-optimal spinal surgery outcomes are costly. The costs for a surgery that results in quadriplegia are not only horrendous financially for the provider, but personally for the patient whose quality of life drastically declines.

Intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) can reduce the potential for these bad outcomes. Neuromonitoring can help lower costly risk or additional expenses by identifying the deficit in time for it to be corrected. As Nancy Epstein, MD, reports in her article, “Evaluation of Intraoperative Somatosensory-Evoked Potential Monitoring During 100 Cervical Operations,” intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring has contributed to the reduction of neurologic injury from 4 – 6.9% down to 0 – 0.7%.

(Please refer to the website section labeled CASE STUDIES for
more information on surgical monitoring and links to related publications, including
those mentioned above.)