A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population – Haynes et al for the WHO Safe Surgery Saves Lives Study Group
The paper chosen for this week’s journal club has had an impact on patient safety worldwide: As an F1 during my colorectal surgery job (on the rare occasions I went to theatre) I saw how this paper has changed practice with the implementation of the WHO safe surgery checklist.
In the surgical setting it has been estimated that almost half of all complications are unavoidable. This is a huge patient safety issue. In 2008, the WHO published guidelines to ensure the safety of surgical patients. From this, the authors of the NEJM paper designed a 19 item checklist with the with the aim of reducing surgical complications and its subsequent morbidity and mortality.
The surgical safety checklist is a simple intervention, a checklist that is followed at three key points with the whole surgical team present – before the induction of anaesthesia, before skin incision and before the patient leaves the operating theatre. The primary endpoint of the study was the occurrence of any major complication, including death, during a period of postoperative hospitalisation, up to 30 days (complications were defined as outlined in the American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program).
The trial was run at eight sites in a range of healthcare settings worldwide. Before the checklist was implemented at the trial sites, baseline data, including complication rates, were reported for 3,733 patients at all trial sites. The checklist was then implemented, consecutively enrolling patients over the age of 16 years undergoing non-cardiac surgery. During the pre-checklist period the rate of any complication at all sites was 11%. After the implementation of the checklist this fell to 7% (P<0.001). The total in-hospital rate of death fell from 1.5% to 0.8% (P=0.003). The authors of the paper concluded that:
Applied on a global basis, this checklist program has the potential to prevent large numbers of deaths and disabling complications, although further study is needed to determine the precise mechanism and durability of the effect in specific settings.
According to the WHO over 3000 hospitals worldwide have now implemented the surgical safety checklist, an impressive figure that shows how research can translate into a world-wide change in practice. Tonight night at 8.00pm BST we will be discussing this paper – a list of discussion points will be posted shortly. I look forward to another interesting and lively debate.
This is an excellent read. I love seeing how small things can be implemented to make such a huge improvement that can and does change lives.
I have a website that is based around the profession of surgical technicians so it directly relates to what this article is talking about. These surgical techs are more than likely following this three step guideline to make sure there are no complications and if there are, they are fixed immediately.
Take a look at my blog if you have the time, http://www.surgicaltechsalary.org and thanks for the nice article.
I think this is a real great article.Really thank you! Much obliged.