Implementation of Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative in Ahmed-Gasim’s Cardiac Center

Aim: This paper reports on the implementation of a Safe Surgery Saves Lives, in Ahmed-Gasim‟s Cardiac Center in 2011 using a change management framework.

Background: Medical errors and incidence of traumatic injuries in surgical care services were recognized as a proportion of the total global burden of disease. Surgical care and procedures can potentially affect the lives of millions of people worldwide. Studies done by WHO found that wrong person, wrong procedure, and wrong site surgery is a preventable adverse event, and defined a core set of minimum standards that can be applied universally across borders and settings, and developed a Surgical Safety Checklist as a tool to ensure safety culture, teamwork, communications, information handoff, patient involvement, and systematic check of processes.

Methods: A Users' Guide to Managing Change in the Health Service Executive, HSE change model with major four phases; initiation, planning, implementation, and mainstreaming, was used to guide the implementation of the Safe Surgery Saves Live Initiative through using the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist in Ahmed-Gasim‟ Cardiac Center (AGCC).

Results: Implementation of a surgery checklist improved safety culture, memory recall, communication, team work, systematic check process, and decrease medical errors, such as wrong patient, wrong site, and wrong procedure. Implementation of a surgery checklist did not delay cases or increase load of work.