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Surgical patient safety is a priority in the national and international quality healthcare improvement strategies. The objective of the study was to implement a collaborative intervention with multiple components and to evaluate the impact of the patient surgical safety checklist (SSC) application. This is a prospective, longitudinal multicenter study with a 7-month follow-up period in 2009 based on a collaborative intervention for the implementation of a 24 item-SSC distributed in 3 different stages (sign in, time out, sign out) for its application to the surgical patient. A total number of 27 hospitals participated in the strategy. The global implementation rate was 48% (95%CI, 47.6%-48.4%) during the evaluation period. The overall compliance with all the items of the SSC included in each stage (sign in, time out, sign out) was 75,1% (95%CI, 73.5%-76.7%) for the sign in, 77.1% (95%CI, 75.5%-78.6%) for the time out and 88.3% (95%CI, 87.2%-89.5%) for the sign out respectively. The individual compliance with each item of the SSC has remained above 85%, except for the surgical site marking with an adherence of 67.4% (95%CI, 65.7%-69.1%)] and 71.2% (95%CI, 69.6%-72.9%)] in the sign in and time out respectively. The SSC was successfully implemented to 48% of the surgeries performed to the participating hospitals. The global compliance with the SSC was elevated and the intervention trend was stable during the evaluation period. Strategies were identified to allow of a higher number of surgeries with application of the SSC and more professional involvement in measures compliance such as surgical site marking., (Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Espana.)

Objective: The complaints to a medical service are a measure of the quality of health care perceived by the patients. The aim of this study was to analyse the differences found in the percentage of complaints made to the General and Gastrointestinal Surgery Department (GGSD) with the changes made due to moving to a new hospital., Material and Methods: A longitudinal study of the percentage of complaints made to the GGSD in two 6 month periods in the same year (periods A and B). The Department was moved to a new hospital between the two periods. The percentage complaints associated with the hospital and outpatient activity is compared., Results: The percentage complaints made to the GGSD was 3.02% directed at the hospital service and 0.44% to outpatient care. When both periods were compared, a statistically significant difference was observed in the hospital complaints (A: 3.74% vs B: 2.20%, P=.006) and in the outpatient complaints (A: 0.53% vs. B: 0.34%, P=.005). It could also be shown that there was a continuous significant correlation in the parallel decrease in the hospital and outpatient complaints (R:0.988 P<.001)., Conclusions: The structural and functional change due to moving to a new hospital showed that the percentage of complaints made to the GGSD changed significantly in the period studied. Prospective multicentre studies are required to evaluate whether these results can be extrapolated to other services., (Copyright © 2011 AEC. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Adverse event (AE) rates in General Surgery vary, according to different authors and recording methods, between 2% and 30%. Six years ago we designed a prospective AE recording system to change patient safety culture in our Department. We present the results of this work after a 6 year follow-up., Material and Method: The AE, sequelae and health care errors in a University Hospital surgery department were recorded. An analysis of each incident recorded was performed by a reviewer. The data was entered into data base for rapid access and consultation. The results were routinely presented in Departmental morbidity-mortality sessions., Results: A total of 13,950 patients had suffered 11,254 AE, which affected 5142 of them (36.9% of admissions). A total of 920 patients were subjected to at least one health care error (6.6% of admissions). This meant that 6.6% of our patients suffered an avoidable AE. The overall mortality at 5 years in our department was 2.72% (380 deaths). An adverse event was implicated in the death of the patient in 180 cases (1.29% of admissions). In 49 cases (0.35% of admissions), mortality could be attributed to an avoidable AE. After 6 years there tends to be an increasingly lower incidence of errors., Conclusions: The exhaustive and prospective recording of AE leads to changes in patient safety culture in a Surgery Department and helps decrease the incidence of health care errors., (Copyright © 2011 AEC. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.)