Abstract: Background - Surgical safety checklists are widely used in human healthcare and have been shown to decrease the rate of medical errors and improve teamwork. Their use in veterinary medicine is not well described.
Objective – To describe the development and implementation of a checklist initiative derived from the WHO Safe Surgical Checklist in 100 emergency and specialty veterinary hospitals.
Methods - An organizational-wide quality improvement initiative was developed based on the WHO Safe Surgery Saves Lives Initiative. Hospitals teams were provided with WHO-derived sedation and anesthesia checklists, as well as educational and implementation training. A perception survey was performed to determine baseline rate of use prior to initiative launch.
Results – Sixty-four percent (64%) of respondents reporting using formal procedural and surgical checklists prior to the initiative. Of those, 71% felt comfortable speaking up about patient concerns during procedures. However, only 30% reported reliably discussing patient risk factors prior to procedure and 32% discussed contingency planning after anesthetic procedures.
Checklist use was expanded to include contingency planning, and checklists were encouraged to be used by all hospital services. Veterinary technicians played a critical role in initiative success. Most teams adjusted the checklists provided to suit their unique needs, which was encouraged. Participants described verbally introducing themselves as the step they would most like to eliminate.
Conclusions – Anesthetic checklists are commonly used in specialty veterinary hospitals, but often without contingency planning. Further study is needed to determine the impact and sustained success of a large-scale, quality improvement checklist initiative.
