EVALUATION OF COMPLIANCE WITH THE SURGICAL CHECKLIST

Abstract

Objective: To verify surgical checklist compliance obtained through different tools: checklist completion, process auditing and evaluation of complication and mortality rates in a university hospital. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study carried out in a surgical center of a university hospital in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Data collection occurred in two stages: firstly, by auditing the oral application of the checklist and comparing it with the checklist completion level; and secondly, by reviewing medical records of colorectal surgery patients to evaluate compliance, surgical site infection, reoperation, readmission and mortality rates. Descriptive data analysis, inferential statistics and chi-square test were performed. Results: In the first stage, 100 random procedures were monitored for oral application auditing and none of them were totally applied by the surgical team, however, 65% of the checklists were fully completed. In the second stage, from 353 analyzed records, 63.7% of the checklists were complete, surgical site infection rate was higher in cases with incomplete checklists and no impact of their compliance level on the other outcomes was observed. Conclusion: Checklist completion does not portray its compliance level and should be used with caution as an indicator, associating it with complementary tools such as regular auditing and monitoring of clinical outcomes.