Implementation of surgical safety checklist in Mukalla hospitals; Yemen

Background: The use of WHO surgical safety checklist results in striking improvements in surgical outcomes and decreases effectively the adverse events; accordingly, it necessitates rapid adoption worldwide. We are going to assess the extent of application of such checklist in our surgical setting. Methods: we surveyed all six hospitals in Mukalla city in three months period (aug- oct 2016), Observations and interviews were conducted using already prepared forms. The data was analyzed by SPSS version 20. Results: Atotal of six hospitals performed 110 procedures during the three months period. The private hospitals implementing the WHO surgical safety checklist more than government hospitals 87.10 % vs 79.39%. (Sign out) part of the checklist was the most applied 86.75% followed by (sign in) and (Time out) 86.37%, 81.08% respectively. The overall application of the standards of the checklist in Mukalla hospitals was 81.77%. Conclusion: The surgical safety checklist of WHO was partially applied in our hospitals. The checklist is a simple tool, which can downloaded freely from the WHO. Adaptation of the checklist to suit local conditions is encouraged.