Safe surgery: Tool and Resources

The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist was developed after extensive consultation aiming to decrease errors and adverse events, and increase teamwork and communication in surgery. The 19-item checklist has gone on to show significant reduction in both morbidity and mortality and is now used by a majority of surgical providers around the world.

Other translations

Checklist Adaptation Guide

Speakers' kit

Starter Kit

This starter kit will help administrators, clinicians, nurses, and other patient safety personnel walk through the process of implementing the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist in a facility.

Other materials

The second global patient safety challenge : safe surgery saves lives

1 May 2008

The second global patient safety challenge : safe surgery saves lives

Infographic

Safe Surgery Saves Lives poster

WHO Surgical Safety Checklist Implementation

As with any new tool, one of the biggest challenges of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist is to ensure its successful implementation. WHO thus launched an implementation manual alongside the Checklist to aid its introduction.

Implementation manual WHO surgical safety checklist 2009

2 April 2009

Implementation manual WHO surgical safety checklist 2009

Safe surgery saves lives

WHO Guidelines for safe surgery: safe surgery saves lives

3 April 2009

WHO Guidelines for safe surgery: safe surgery saves lives

Modifying the Checklist for implementation

To ensure successful implementation, it is important to make sure that the Checklist is suitable for your setting. Adaptation after local consultation is encouraged.

Reproduction of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist

The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist can be reproduced in its entirety without any modifications or adaptations to layout or wording. This includes the WHO emblem as it appears as an integral part of this tool.

If the Checklist is modified in any way, the WHO logo should not be used. Instead, in order to acknowledge the original WHO source, the Checklist should bear the following text:
“Based on the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist,© World Health Organization 2009. All rights reserved.”

How do I know whether the Checklist we already use meets the goals of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist?

Conduct a small test. Print out the WHO Checklist, use it for a case, and note the following:

If you can answer “yes” to all of these questions, then the spirit of the WHO Checklist is being met. Consider running through this exercise with several more cases to see if this occurs with every patient every time. If not, redesign your processes to ensure it does.

Improving teamwork and communication is one of the main goals of using a checklist. Many hospitals are already doing most of the items on the list but not reviewing them as a team. If there is no designated point when these items are reviewed, it is common to find that they are verified most of the time, but not every time, i.e., not consistently. The results of the WHO pilot study appear to confirm the conclusions of a number of earlier studies that indicate that preoperative team introductions and briefings and postoperative debriefings contribute to improved processes and outcomes.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Patient safety: Safe surgery saves lives Patient safety: Safe surgery saves lives

Global support for Safe Surgery Saves Lives

A range of professional societies and organizations from countries worldwide have expressed their support for the creation of a WHO Surgical Safety Checklist and the Safe Surgery initiative. During the active phase of the campaign, the following endorsed the Checklist:

Alphabetical list of supporting organizations