Surgical safety checklists

doi:10.1136/bmj.b220

Published 21 January 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b220
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b220

Editorials

Surgical safety checklists

Improve collaborative teamwork, minimise surprises, and reduceharm to patients

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Surgical deaths and complications are a global public healthproblem. The World Health Organization estimates that each yearhalf a million deaths related to surgery could be prevented.¹² In England and Wales, the National Patient Safety Agency’snational reporting and learning system recorded 129 419 surgeryrelated events in 2007.³ In the United States, the state ofMinnesota (with less than 2% of the US population) reported21 surgeries in the wrong site during one year (October 2007to October 2008).⁴ The real situation is probably even worsethough, because most safety incidents are not reported.⁵

In June 2008, WHO launched the Safe Surgery Saves Lives campaign.²This included a "surgical safety checklist" (www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/en/)to ensure that the entire operating theatre team has a commonunderstanding of the patient and the surgical procedure, andthat evidence based interventions such as antibiotic prophylaxisor deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis . . . [Full text of this article]

Jasmeet Soar, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine¹, James Peyton, specialist registrar in anaesthesia¹, Michael Leonard, physician leader for patient safety², Anne M Pullyblank, consultant colorectal surgeon¹

¹ North Bristol NHS Trust, Bristol BS10 5NB, ² Kaiser Permanente, CO 80439, USA

jasmeet.soar@nbt.nhs.uk

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