The World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist: An Audit of Quality Implementation on Patients Undergoing Elective Surgery at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Mangalagiri

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Introduction: The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced a 17-point Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) in 2007 to ensure patient safety and enhance communication among healthcare teams.This tool was developed to decrease errors and adverse events in the perioperative period.Our institute, AIIMS Mangalagiri, implemented the WHO SSC across all operating theaters (OTs), and we conducted an audit to assess compliance.Methodology: The audit was approved by the institutional ethics committee, and we designed our survey with clear inclusion criteria, focusing on all patients undergoing elective surgery at our institution.We collected data over a period of 6 months, recording more than 200 observations while performing all three different sections of the WHO SSC: Sign-In, Time-Out, and Sign-Out stages.To ensure unbiased data collection, all observations were recorded by either the principal investigator or one of the co-investigators.We used a Google Form to collect data, which was then transferred to an Excel sheet for analysis.Results: We received 203 responses across 10 OTs.The results showed that while the overall compliance rate was acceptable, there were areas for improvement, including surgical site marking, displaying essential imaging, and clear communication among team members.Specifically, we found that 35% of patients came to the operating theater without their surgical site marked, 7% did not confirm the site of surgery, and 2% did not have their clinical record (CR) number read out by healthcare providers.The compliance for timely administration of antibiotics and displaying essential imaging is low; compliance for correct swab and instrument counts is less than 100%.Conclusion: The study concludes that while the WHO SSC is an essential safety tool, there is room for improvement in its implementation.We recommend implementing changes, such as marking the surgical site before transferring patients to the operating theater, introducing team members by name and role, and confirming pulse oximetry readings before surgery.By following these recommendations and incorporating our suggestions into the modified list, we can enhance patient safety and outcomes.