European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Introduction: Perioperative patient safety remains crucial in healthcare to prevent avoidable errors. The World Health Organization developed a surgical safety checklist that was implemented by the Department of Health as well as highly recommended by quality Programmes. Aim: To document the level of knowledge and practices regarding WHO recommended Surgical Safety Checklist among the Surgeons and other OT staffs. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the Operating surgeons, OT Nurses, Anesthesiologists working at HIMS. They were contacted personally to fill pre - tested Knowledge attitude and practice testing questionnaire. Approval was taken from the institutional ethical committee. Before conducting knowledge assessment a checklist was used to study the completeness of the filled surgical safety checklist form from the case sheets Results: 57% of the respondents had more than 10 years of experience. 81% were permanent employees of the institution. 66% participants had attended trainings related to the checklist. Majority mentioned their source of information about checklist was training and as well as after it was introduced in the OT booklet. Questions related to Sign in, Time out and Sign out phases were correctly answered by 28.5%, 28.5% and 38% of the participants respectively. Majority had partial knowledge (>70%) regarding the three phases. 72 % of the case sheets were complete at Medical Record Department compared to 58% at immediate post op ward. Barriers mentioned by the participants are that the time was inadequate and filling checklist was an added responsibility, number of OT staffs were inadequate, to bring the OT room to completely stand still when the checklist is read out is difficult especially to junior surgeons. Few mentioned they needed training and also one mentioned that signing the checklist each time is itself a barrier. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the overall application of the surgical safety checklist can be considered high, although the completeness, especially of the time out and sign out section, could be improved. Variation in use of the checklist is noted between Departments and Units. It requires training and awareness activities across the Departments.