AHRQ Patient Safety Network ► The WHO surgical safety checklist: survey of patients' views.

AHRQ Patient Safety Network

Most postoperative patients strongly support the use of a surgical safety checklist.BMJ Qual Saf. 2014 Jul 18; [Epub ahead of print].

The WHO surgical safety checklist: survey of patients' views.

Russ SJ, Rout S, Caris J, et al. BMJ Qual Saf. 2014 Jul 18; [Epub ahead of print].

The World Health Organization's surgical safety checklist has been associated with reductions in postoperative complications in both planned and urgent surgical procedures. Despite this, real-world implementation of the checklist has proven to be difficult. In this study conducted in the United Kingdom, postoperative patients strongly supported use of the checklist during procedures, feeling that it would improve safety and teamwork during their procedure. The authors argue that patients' desire for thechecklist use could be utilized as a means of overcoming cultural barriers to checklist implementation. Interestingly, despite their support for the checklist, most patients in the study did not feel they had a role to play in improving patient safety and did not wish to be more involved in safety efforts.

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