WHO Surgical Safety Checklist Implementation and Its Impact in Perioperative Morbidity and Mortality in an Academic Medical Center in Chile

The purpose was to determine the impact of the implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist in terms of morbidity and mortality in adult surgical patients in a tertiary healthcare institution in Chile.

After Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval (Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile), a retrospective analysis of all surgical encounters on patients age 15 and above from January 2005 to December 2012 at our center will be reviewed.

Encounter data will include up to 14 diagnostic and procedure International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes, demographic data, date of admission and discharge, emergency status, healthcare system used and in-hospital death. A 5-level "high risk" variable was created in order to account for surgical complexity and associated in-hospital mortality (level 1, surgeries with <1% in-hospital mortality; level 2, 1% to <5%; level 3, 5% to <10%; level 4, 10% to <15%; level 5, > or = 15%)6.

Surgical heterogeneity will be calculated by the Internal Herfindahl Index, which represents the diversity or comprehensiveness of the types of procedures performed at a facility.

Statistics: