The implementation of this checklist during hospitalization within 30 days after surgery may reduce the incidence of complications, including death.

Used in three critical time points in the operating room: before patient anesthesia, before skin incision at the surgical site, and before the patient leaves the operating room. This checklist is not exhaustive and is encouraged to be supplemented and modified to fit local medical institutions.

About this checklist: The study was published by Haynes et al. on January 14, 2009, in the New England Journal of Medicine, aiming to address the issue of surgical complications. The researchers aimed to improve team communication and consistency in care by implementing a simple 19-item surgical safety checklist.

This is a multi-center, multinational, prospective study involving patients from different geographic locations and economic levels. Initially, data from 3,733 consecutively enrolled patients were prospectively collected, followed by the collection of data from 3,955 patients after the implementation of the surgical safety checklist. The primary outcome was the incidence of complications (including death) during hospitalization within 30 days after surgery. Only patients aged 16 and older undergoing non-cardiac surgery were included.

Results of the implementation of the surgical checklist: The surgical mortality rate was 1.5% in the non-usage group and 0.8% in the usage group (P=0.003). The incidence of in-hospital complications was 11.0% in the non-usage group and 7.0% in the usage group (P<0.001). The rate of surgical site infections and unplanned reoperations in the usage group was also significantly reduced (p<0.05).