Patient safety remains the most important priority for Lake of the Woods District Hospital, and this involves ensuring a safe experience for patients who undergo surgery here. Our patients can expect safe, high quality care, and one tool we use to help ensure a positive patient care experience is a surgical safety checklist.

 

A surgical safety checklist is a patient safety communication tool that is used by our team of operating room professionals (nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and others) to discuss important details about each surgical case. In many ways, the surgical checklist is similar to an airline pilot’s checklist used just before take-off. It is a final check prior to surgery used to make sure everyone knows the important medical information they need to know about the patient, all equipment is available and in working order, and everyone is ready to proceed.

 

Essentially, the checklist is about improving overall teamwork – a critical factor in producing positive clinical outcomes. There is a lot of work being done in Ontario right now to improve patient safety, and the surgical safety checklist is one component.

2013 Checklist Use Reporting Period	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
# of Surgical Cases Reported	241	187	213	218	204	160	257	222	189	213	180	171
# of Cases SSSL Checklist Used	240	187	213	217	204	160	257	222	189	213	180	171
% Compliance	99.5%	100%	100%	99.5%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%