A Complete Clinical Audit to Assess the Compliance and Quality of the Safe Surgery Checks in OMFS Theater

Abstract

Background: The aim of the study was to assess the compliance and quality of safe surgery checks in the oral maxillofacial theater at Leeds General Infirmary. Methods: This was an initial single blind prospective audit of 10 random surgical theater sessions using a safe surgery checklist toolkit table to assess the compliance and quality of the safe surgery checks. The results and recommendation of the initial audit were disseminated to staff at our monthly audit meeting, after which further random six theater sessions were re-audited. Results: Initial audit showed a consistent result of compliance in all but two areas of safer surgery checks according to guidelines: 1) 100% compliance in sign-in, time-out, and sign-out taking place; 2) 100% of elements in surgery check covered and clearly announced with no interruptions; 3) 87.5% of team members “downed tools” for checks; and 4) 87.5% of team members were present for all stages of the checks. Re-audit showed satisfactory 100% compliance in all domains including areas that were shown to be suboptimal in the initial audit. Conclusions: Further randomized auditing needed to maintain the compliance and improve any suboptimal results. We recommend further research be needed across a range of surgical departments in order to help strength the body of evidence behind the good standard and practice of safe surgery checklist. J Curr Surg. 2017;7(3):35-38 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jcs327w