The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a surgical safety checklist that includes 19 items that must be checked at three points during the surgical procedure: login, wait time, and logoff. Every year, millions of people undergo surgery, and surgical interventions account for approximately 13% of the world's total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). After the surgery is complete, but before leaving the operating room, the surgical team will use the logoff checklist to complete medical record documentation and identify areas for improvement in future surgical cases. Five surgical specialties were each grouped together, with patients undergoing surgical procedures as usual. Surgical procedures are meant to save lives, but unsafe surgical care can cause significant harm.
With the new three-phase approach to the surgical safety checklist, many hospitals and surgical teams need to adjust their processes to complete all three phases. A surgical safety checklist is a patient safety communication tool that involves a team of operating room professionals (nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and others) to discuss important details about each surgical case. The authors thank the Norwegian Knowledge Center for Patient Safety for their collaboration in translating the Surgical Safety Checklist.
