Endorsement of the "WHO Surgical Safety Checklist"
As part of raising global awareness on the importance of safer surgical care, we have invited professional associations and societies of surgery, anesthesiology, nursing and others to endorse the concept of a "WHO Surgical Safety Checklist" expressing their support of:
- surgical safety improvements as essential components of public health
- the concepts of the "WHO Surgical Safety Checklist" as a tool for surgical teams worldwide to improve patient safety
- the establishment of the "Surgical Vital Statistics” requesting that countries track surgical volume and in-hospital surgical death rates
A one-page template document is available in all the official UN languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) for organizations to use as a guide to develop their own Letter of Endorsement.
The team is key
"A surgical intervention is a team effort. The most critical resources for improving surgical quality and safety in the operating room are the team members: the surgeons, anaesthesia professionals, nurses, clinical technicians, and others, who all add their specific expertise to ensure patients are not harmed.
A team that works effectively together to engage their knowledge and abilities on behalf of a patient can avert a considerable proportion of life-threatening complications."
Dr Atul Gawande
If your organization would like to support the initiative by endorsing this concept, the Endorsement should be printed on the appropriate letterhead and signed by the organization's President, Secretary General, or Chief Executive Officer. The signed document should then be returned to the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety. The letters received by 25 June 2008 were presented as part of the Safe Surgery Saves Lives global launch event, but all endorsements received will be acknowledged on our website.
Endorsements can be emailed to whopatientsafety@who.int or sent in hard copy to:
Sir Liam Donaldson
Chair of WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety
World Health Organization
IER/PSP
20 Avenue Appia
CH-1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland