Progetto SOS.net ‘Sale operatorie sicure’ Adozione della Surgical safety checklist negli ospedali della Regione Emilia-Romagna

In 2008 the Who diffused the Guidelines for safe surgery. In 2010, following this milestone publication, the Regional agency for health and social care in Emilia-Romagna, supported by the Mod- ena university hospital, launched the SOS.net project aimed at implementing the Surgical safety checklist in order to improve safety in the operating room and to prevent potentially avoidable adverse events. The regional checklist – divided into two modules – includes a set of check to be carried out during the surgery, and determines possible deviations from the standard. This paper presents the results of the pilot study (2011): more than 60% of the surgical units was for- mally recruited and 52% was able to document the use of the checklist through a dedicated regional database. Overall, the use of the checklist was registered in 62,507 surgeries – 19% of the total num- ber of surgeries delivered at regional level – with a high variation among the different units (min 1.4; max 57.2). Among the 5426 reported deviations from the standard, the unmarked site is the more fre- quent (31.3%). Compliance of involved professionals was assessed through a questionnaire which re- ported an overall positive attitude towards the tool, but clarified the most relevant difficulties (mainly cultural and technical/organisational) for its routine implementation. The paper deals with the report- ed results, compares them with the literature, and identifies some future directions