Abstract
Overwhelming rates of postsurgical adverse outcomes have been recognized to be preventable. As a means of minimizing the incidence of iatrogenesis, in 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Clean Care is Safer Care campaign, which focused on the importance of hand hygiene. Following its success, the WHO hoped to utilize similar strategies in their Safe Surgery Saves Lives campaign, which began in 2007. Despite active efforts to implement the associated 19-step surgical checklist, resource limitations restrict the full potential of such harm reduction strategies. Here, we discuss current evidence evaluating the effectiveness of the WHO’s surgical checklist and address challenges with respect to its application in the real world.
Highlights
Overwhelming rates of postsurgical adverse outcomes have been recognized to be preventable
As of 2013, 15 700 health care facilities worldwide have committed to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for improving hand hygiene.[1]
While the statistics urge a widespread harm reduction intervention, the complexities of surgical error make it much more difficult to address than hand hygiene
Summary
Overwhelming rates of postsurgical adverse outcomes have been recognized to be preventable. The second WHO campaign, Safe Surgery Saves Lives, began in 2007 and aimed to reduce preventable causes of surgical complications.
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