Reality check of using the surgical safety checklist: A qualitative study to observe application errors during snapshot audits

Healthcare professionals' perception of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist and psychological safety: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND

The Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) is a cornerstone of ensuring the safety and accuracy of communication among interdisciplinary teams in the operating room. Central to the successful implementation of such a checklist is the concept of psychological safety. Despite the extensive body of research on the checklists' efficacy, the association between healthcare professionals' (HCPs) perceptions of the checklist and their level of psychological safety remains uninvestigated. This study attempts to address this gap by examining how their perceptions of the checklist intersect with their sense of psychological safety.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey comprising 25 items was conducted from November 2022 to January 2023 on; Demographics (6 items), the SSC (12 items), and the Psychological Safety Scale (7 items). We invited 125 HCPs from five different professional groups in the operation ward to complete the survey.

RESULTS

Of the 125 asked to participate, 107 responded, and 100 of whom completed the entire survey. The level of psychological safety increased by 1.25 (95 % CI 0.36 to 2.14, p=0.006) per one-point increase of the perception that colleagues listen when checklist items are being reviewed, and increased by 1.1 (95% CI 0.4 to 1.7, p=0.002) per one-point increase in the perception that the checklist enhances interdisciplinary teamwork, and increased by 0.86 (95% CI 0.15 to 1.57, p=0.02) per one-point increase in the perception that the checklist provides structure in the operating room. Conversely, the level of psychological safety decreased by 1.4 (95 % CI 0.5 to 2.3, p=0.004) per one-point increase in the perception that the checklist is time-consuming.

CONCLUSION

Our findings reveal a significant association between psychological safety levels and perceptions of the SSC. Increased psychological safety was linked to more positive views on the checklist's role in enhancing interdisciplinary teamwork, creating structure and attentiveness among colleagues. While seeing the checklist as time-consuming was associated with a lower psychological safety rating. These results suggest that psychological safety influences how individuals view and engage with patient safety measures like the checklist, highlighting the importance of fostering a supportive environment to optimise safety practice.

Paper-and-Pencil vs. Electronic Patient Records: Analyzing Time Efficiency, Personnel Requirements, and Usability Impacts on Healthcare Administration

Background: This study investigates the impact of transitioning from paper and pencil (P&P) methods to electronic patient records (EPR) on workflow and usability in surgical ward rounds. Methods: Surgical ward rounds were audited by two independent observers to evaluate the effects of transitioning from P&P to EPR. Key observations included the number of medical personnel and five critical workflow aspects before and after EPR implementation. Additionally, usability was assessed using the System Usability Scale (SUS) and the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ). Results: A total of 192 P&P and 160 EPR observations were analyzed. Physicians experienced increased administrative workload with EPR, while nurses adapted more easily. Ward teams typically consisted of two physicians and three or four nurses. Usability scores rated the system as "Not Acceptable" across all professional groups. Conclusions: The EPR system introduced usability challenges, particularly for physicians, despite potential benefits like improved data access. Usability flaws hindered system acceptance, highlighting the need for better workflow integration. Addressing these issues could improve efficiency and reduce administrative strain. As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical practice, healthcare professionals must critically assess AI-driven tools to ensure safe and effective patient care.

Remote Assessment of Real-World Surgical Safety Checklist Performance Using the OR Black Box: A Multi-Institutional Evaluation

BACKGROUND

Large-scale evaluation of surgical safety checklist performance has been limited by the need for direct observation. The operating room (OR) Black Box is a multichannel surgical data capture platform that may allow for the holistic evaluation of checklist performance at scale.

STUDY DESIGN

In this retrospective cohort study, data from 7 North American academic medical centers using the OR Black Box were collected between August 2020 and January 2022. All cases captured during this period were analyzed. Measures of checklist compliance, team engagement, and quality of checklist content review were investigated.

RESULTS

Data from 7,243 surgical procedures were evaluated. A time-out was performed during most surgical procedures (98.4%, n = 7,127), whereas a debrief was performed during 62.3% (n = 4,510) of procedures. The mean percentage of OR staff who paused and participated during the time-out and debrief was 75.5% (SD 25.1%) and 54.6% (SD 36.4%), respectively. A team introduction (performed 42.6% of the time) was associated with more prompts completed (31.3% vs 18.7%, p < 0.001), a higher engagement score (0.90 vs 0.86, p < 0.001), and a higher percentage of team members who ceased other activities (80.3% vs 72%, p < 0.001) during the time-out.

CONCLUSIONS

Remote assessment using OR Black Box data provides useful insight into surgical safety checklist performance. Many items included in the time-out and debrief were not routinely discussed. Completion of a team introduction was associated with improved time-out performance. There is potential to use OR Black Box metrics to improve intraoperative process measures.

Facilitators and barriers to the implementation of surgical safety checklist: an integrative review

Surgical procedures pose an immense risk to patients, which can lead to various complications and adverse events. In order to safeguard patients' safety, the World Health Organization initiated the implementation of the Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) in operating theatres worldwide. The aim of this integrative review was to summarize and evaluate the use and implementation of SSC, focusing on facilitators and barriers at the individual, professional, and organizational levels. This review followed closely the integrative review method by Whittemore and Knafl. An English literature search was conducted across three electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE) and other hand search references. Keywords search included: 'acute care', 'surgical', 'adult patients', 'pre-operative', 'intra-operative', and 'post-operative'. A total of 816 articles were screened by two reviewers independently and all articles that met the pre-specified inclusion criteria were retained. Data extracted from the articles were categorized, compared, and further analysed. A total of 34 articles were included with the majority being observational studies in developed and European countries. Checklists had been adopted in various surgical specialities. Findings indicated that safety checklists improved team cohesion and communication, resulting in enhanced patient safety. This resulted in high compliance rates as healthcare workers expressed the benefits of SSC to facilitate safety within operating theatres. Barriers included manpower limitations, hierarchical culture, lack of staff involvement and training, staff resistance, and appropriateness of checklist. Common facilitators and barriers at individual, professional, and organizational levels have been identified. Staff training and education, conducive workplace culture, timely audits, and appropriate checklist adaptations are crucial components for a successful implementation of the SSC. Methods have also been introduced to counter barriers of SSC.

Factors Causing Variation in World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist Effectiveness-A Rapid Scoping Review

INTRODUCTION

This review was conducted to determine what factors might be responsible for prejudicing the outcomes after the implementation of a World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist (WHO SSC), grouping them appropriately and proposing strategies that enable the SSC a more helpful and productive tool in the operating room.

METHODS

It was a rapid scoping review conducted as per Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses extension guidelines for scoping reviews (PRISMA-Scr). Comprehensive search on MEDLINE and Embase was carried out, to include all relevant studies published during last 5 years. Twenty-seven studies were included in analysis. The barriers to SSC implementation were classified into 5 main groups, with further subdivisions in each.

RESULTS

The results of review revealed that there are 5 major barriers to SSC at the following levels: organizational, checklist, individual, technical, and implementation. Each of these major barriers, on further evaluation, was found to have more than one contributing factors. All these factors were analyzed individually.

CONCLUSIONS

This rapid scoping review has consolidated data, which may pave the way for experts to further examine steps that might be taken locally or globally in order that the WHO SSC to successfully achieve all its desired goals.

Time-Out and Its Role in Neurosurgery

BACKGROUND

Safety checklists have improved surgical outcomes; however, much of the literature comes from general surgery.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the role of time-outs in neurosurgery, understand neurosurgeons' attitudes toward time-out, and highlight areas for improvement.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study using a 15-item survey to evaluate how time-outs were performed across 5 hospitals affiliated with a single neurosurgery training program.

RESULTS

Surveys were sent to 51 neurosurgical faculty, fellows, and residents across 5 hospitals with a 72.5% response rate. At all hospitals, surgeons, anesthesiologists, registered nurses, and circulators were involved in time-outs. Although all required time-out before incision, there was no consensus regarding the precise timing of time-out, in policy or in practice. Overall, respondents believed the existing time-out was adequate for neurosurgical procedures (H1: 17, 65.4%; H2: 19, 86.4%; H3: 14, 70.0%; H4: 20, 80.0%; and H5: 18, 78.3%). Of the respondents, 97.2% believed time-out made surgery safe, 94.6% agreed that time-outs reduce the risk of wrong-side or wrong-level neurosurgery, and 17 (45.9%) saw a role for a neurosurgery-specific safety checklist. Pragmatic challenges (n = 20, 54.1%) and individual beliefs and attitudes (n = 20, 54.1%) were common barriers to implementation of standardized time-outs.

CONCLUSION

Multidisciplinary time-outs have become standard of care in neurosurgery. Despite proximity and overlapping personnel, there is considerable variability between hospitals in the practice of time-outs. This lack of uniformity, allowed for by flexible World Health Organization guidelines, may reflect the origins of surgical time-outs in general surgery, rather than neurosurgery, underscoring the potential for time-out optimization with neurosurgery-specific considerations.

Timeout procedure in paediatric surgery: effective tool or lip service? A randomised prospective observational study

Background

For over a decade, the preoperative timeout procedure has been implemented in most paediatric surgery units. However, the impact of this intervention has not been systematically studied. This study evaluates whether purposefully introduced errors during the timeout routine are detected and reported by the operating team members.

Methods

After ethics board approval and informed consent, deliberate errors were randomly and clandestinely introduced into the timeout routine for elective surgical procedures by a paediatric surgery attending. Errors were randomly selected among wrong name, site, side, allergy, intervention, birthdate and gender items. The main outcome measure was how frequent an error was reported by the team and by whom.

Results

Over the course of 16 months, 1800 operations and timeouts were performed. Errors were randomly introduced in 120 cases (6.7%). Overall, 54% of the errors were reported; the remainder went unnoticed. Errors were pointed out most frequently by anaesthesiologists (64%), followed by nursing staff (28%), residents-in-training (6%) and medical students (1%).

Conclusion

Errors in the timeout routine go unnoticed by the team in almost half of cases. Therefore, even if preoperative timeout routines are strictly implemented, mistakes may be overlooked. Hence, the timeout procedure in its current form appears unreliable. Future developments may be useful to improve the quality of the surgical timeout and should be studied in detail.

[Implementation of the G-BA Quality Management Guideline Regarding Surgical Checklist at a University Maximum Care Hospital - Claim and Reality]

Surgical treatment pathways can favor the development of Adverse Events (AE) due to the inherent complexity of their service delivery. The World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) is an instrument that effectively reduces perioperative morbidity and mortality. Against this background, in 2016 the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) issued a Quality Management Directive (QM-RL) making the use of checklists mandatory for surgical procedures. The aim of this study was to compare the checklist compliance of all ten surgical organizational units of the University Medical Center Mainz in the second half of 2017 and 2018. In addition to the annex of the SSC, the processing of the subitems »Sign-In«, »Team-Time-Out« and »Sign-Out« was evaluated. A comparison of 2017 with 2018 showed an increase in all parameters (»Creation of checklist« (94.2 / 96.5%), »Sign-In« (81.4 / 84.4%), »Team-Time-Out« (56.8 / 62.4%) and »Sign-Out« (50.7 / 57.9%), without, however, statistical significance (p>0.05). In contrast, there were significant differences between certified and non-certified surgical operating units. The parameters showing significant differences were found to be »Sign-In« (87.9 / 71.8%; p=0.034), »Team-Time-Out« (68.4 / 39.4%; p=0.029) and »Sign-Out« (62.1 / 33.6%; p=0.029) for 2017 and »Team-Time-Out« (76.2 / 41.7%); p=0.019) and the »Sign-Out« (71.3 / 37.9%; p=0.019) for 2018. From 2017 to 2018, there was increased implementation of the SCC, particularly in certified facilities. Therefore, the external control of prescribed quality features, for instance, as part of a certification procedure, appears to be a suitable tool for increasing checklist compliance.

Deployment of Critical Incident Reporting System (CIRS) in public Styrian hospitals: a five year perspective

BACKGROUND

To increase patient safety, so-called Critical Incident Reporting Systems (CIRS) were implemented. For Austria, no data are available on how CIRS is used within a healthcare facility. Therefore, the aim of this study was to present the development of CIRS within one of the biggest hospital providers in Austria.

METHODS

In the province of Styria, CIRS was introduced in 2012 within KAGes (holder of public hospitals) in 22 regional hospitals and one tertiary university hospital. CIRS is available in all of these hospitals using the same software solution. For reporting a CIRS case an overall guideline exists.

RESULTS

As of 2013, 2.504 CIRS cases were reported. Predominantly, CIRS-cases derived from surgical and associated disciplines (ranging from 35 to 45%). According to the list of hazards (also called "risk atlas"), errors in patient identification (ranging from 7 to 12%), errors in management of medicinal products (ranging from < 5 to 9%), errors in management of medical devices (ranging from < 5 to 10%) and errors in communication (ranging from < 5 to 6%) occurred most frequently. Most often, a CIRS case was reported due to individual error-related reasons (48%), followed by errors caused by organization, team factors, communication or documentation failures (34%).

CONCLUSIONS

In summary, CIRS has been used for 5 years and 2.504 CIRS-cases were reported. There is a steady increase of reported CIRS cases per year. It became also obvious that disregarding guidelines or standards are a very common reason for reporting a CIRS case. CIRS can be regarded as a helpful supportive tool in clinical risk management and supports organizational learning and thereby collective knowledge management.