Compliance to the Surgical Safety Checklist over time in late and early adopters

To compare the compliance of the Surgical Safety Checklist in two groups of users: early (Group A) and late (Group B) adopters, and to detect change over time.

Observational study. We collected all Surgical Safety Checklist protocols in one calendar month period and, eight months later, we repeated collection for another month. Analysis was then performed to compare the compliance in different groups and over time.

There was no statistical difference in the overall compliance between the two groups or between elective and emergency cases. Equally, there was no significant change in compliance over time in Group A. In Group B, however, there was a trend to an improved compliance over time. Compliance to the Surgical Safety Checklist was significantly lower during operations performed by consulting surgeons in comparison to internally employed surgeons.