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Clinical procedures

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In the area of patient safety, the Clinical Procedures team in the department of Essential Health Technologies (EHT) assists countries to reduce the inappropriate use of clinical procedures and equipment.

Normative activities

Activities to promote the setting of standards for patient safety include tools to strengthen and support member states to improve the quality of care in health facilities at the first referral level, in the following areas:

• Policy
• Quality and safety
• Access
• Use.

Headquarters activities

Activities at WHO headquarters have resulted in:

1. checklist of basic minimum requirements for essential emergency surgical care at the district hospital, covering the procedures commonly undertaken, of the risks these entail and of the measures that can be taken to reduce those risks;
2. development of educational and training tools, including:
• training manual: Surgical care at the district hospital, dealing with essential clinical procedures in trauma, pregnancy-related complications, anaesthesia, resuscitation, and infection control;
• e-learning tools (best practice protocols, guidelines on basic minimum requirements to improve the quality of essential emergency and surgical care at the district hospital, training videos);
3. establishment of an Expert Panel for Clinical Surgical Procedures;
4. collaborative activities to improve the quality and safety of clinical procedures in health facilities at the first referral level:
• guidelines on essential trauma care;
• guidelines on clinical use of oxygen;
• generic list of essential emergency equipment and list of oxygen concentrators
• guidelines on the use of equipment (anaesthetic equipment, diathermy, the Haemoglobin Colour Scale to assess anaemia).

Country support

The Clinical Procedures team collaborates with the following organizations and societies of surgery, trauma, obstetrics, anaesthesia, orthopaedics to support the training programmes for essential emergency and surgical care in Member States:

• International College of Surgeons (ICS)
• International Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (SICOT)
• Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO)
• Associations of Surgeons of East Africa (ASEA)
• College of Surgeons of East, Central and South Africa (COSECSA)
• International Federation of Surgical Colleges (IFSC)
• World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA)
• Canadian Network International Societies of Surgeons
• Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research (GFMER)

The Clinical Procedures Team also engages in training of trainers in essential emergency and surgical procedures and the use of equipment for safe clinical practice.

- Essential health technologies

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