Mobile Application for Personalized Patient Surgical Safety Checklists

Background The purpose of a safety checklist (in medicine, as in aviation) is to detect a potential error before it leads to harm. The World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist has improved compliance with standards and decreased complications from surgery around the world. Now, the aim is to give the patient this tool to more effectively manage their personal conditions, so this will minimize risks related to surgery Time to explore the possibilities of mobile health apps to improve patient safety. Objective To measure the performance of a smartphone application, which allows to manage safety preoperative checklist for patients, according their conditions. Methods We have developed, in collaboration with the Costa del Sol Hospital (Marbella, Malaga, Spain), a tool called Comprueba (Check it), which generates safety preoperative checklists for patients who will undergo surgery. Every checklist is personalized, according to the characteristics and needs of each patient, including those elements that he/she must take into account on the day and the hours before the surgery. This app allows the patient to create alarms to facilitate the implementation of the recommendations, and to communicate both to health professionals and to caregivers if these checks are being met. In case the patient is not meeting the checks, the Hospital will receive a notification and it could contact the patient, in order to check if there is any problem and to remind the patient that he/she should follow the checklist. This tool will help avoid cancellations of surgeries due to improper preparation of the patient. Results Up to now, 296 patients are taking part in the pilot stage, which has been started at the Outpatient Services, as well as at the Ambulatory Surgical Service in the Costa del Sol Hospital. We expect an average of surgery cancellations under 1% due to inadequate preparation of the patient. Conclusions This app opens the way to the possibility of generating other personalized medical safety checklists for patients (Invasive procedures, safe childbirth checklist…) []