Background: With over more than 200 million operations performed per year worldwide, there seems to be an urgent need for a checklist to ensure an errorless surgical procedure. WHO surgical safety checklist(SSC) is one, which can help in minimising intraoperative and post-operative errors. In addition, it can also serve as a tool to encourage teamwork and communication among the hospital staff members.
Methods: This 1 yearlong study was conducted in 2 parts, in the first held pre checklist implementation phase, complications and mortalities were recorded retrospectively and compared with post checklist implementation phase data. Total of 244 patients participated in the first phase and 236 patients were enrolled in the post checklist implementation phase. Compliance and compatibility with the checklist was tested by a questionnaire given to staff members.
Results: Marked reduction in both intraoperative and post-operative complications was documented after checklist implementation. Intraoperative complications went down from 6.14% to 2.12% and post-operative from 6.56% to 3.38%. Similarly, intraoperative mortality rate scrolled down from 3.87% to 0.85% after checklist implementation. Regarding the compliance of the study, 95.3% of our hospital staff was in favour of introducing the WHO SSC as a routine practice in our hospital.
Conclusion: WHO SSC is the need of the hour in order to reduce the intraoperative and post-operative complications. Incorporating WHO SSC in health care setup will not only result in improved health care quality but will surely reduce the cost burden in health sector.
Key words: WHO surgical safety checklist, compliance, questionnaire, intraoperative and post-operative errors
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