Power Failures During Surgery A 2000-2019 Review of Reported Events in the Veterans Health Administration

The authors studied how power failures affected surgical outcomes in Veterans Health Administration facilities between 2000 and 2019. They found that while rare, power outages were in some cases associated with major patient harm. The safety events resulted mostly from generator delay, equipment reboot delay, and equipment backup power failure. The authors recommend disaster preparedness and increased focus on communication during outages to reduce harm.