The association between surgical complications and compliance to the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist: A retrospective analysis of hospital records.

Background: The World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC), now used by healthcare providers worldwide, has proved to be useful in the improvement of patients' health through the reduction of mortality and morbidity after surgery. In the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy the SSC is accompanied by a document that registers any non-conformity (NC) identified during SSC completion. This study aimed to investigate the association between surgical complications and checklist compliance, in terms of incompleteness and presence of NCs, using data from the Modena Local Health Unit (LHU).

A retrospective analysis of the factors associated with surgical checklist compliance using data from a local health unit in Italy, 2018-2021.

Rationale: Since its publication, the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) has been progressively adopted by healthcare providers around the world to monitor and safeguard the delivery of surgeries. In one Italian region's health system, the SSC and other two surgery-specific checklists were supplemented by a document that records any non-conformity (NC) arising from the safety checks.

Aims And Objectives: In this study, we investigated the factors associated with NCs using data from a local health unit (LHU).