[French surgical checklist in a universitary hospital: achievements one year after implementation]

Implementation of the checklist "Safe surgery saves live" (CL) is associated with reduction of perioperative morbidity and mortality. In France, CL is mandatory in operating rooms (OR) since January 2010. The objective of this work was to evaluate the level of the roll out of the CL in our institution, a French universitary hospital.

Evaluation of the level of use of the CL and completion of each item of the CL during three periods of 15 days during the first year of development, live evaluation of the process of filling the CL form and opinion survey of the OR nurses who were CL coordinators in our institution.

Use of CL was 88, 89 and 76%. Completion of preinduction, preincision and postoperative items was respectively 90, 90 and 75%. Only 4% of the analyzed CL was properly filled with communication in the OR at the three phases. Four out of five OR nurses recognized meeting difficulties with CL completion. Half of them felt CL was a communication tool and two out of three OR nurses felt CL was a security tool.

CL evaluation restricted to levels of use is limited and should be extended to a qualitative evaluation. Communication in the OR remains insufficient and represents an important quality improvement aim to improve security in the OR.