Along with improving patient safety, checklists create a greater sense of confidence that the process is completed accurately and thoroughly. Checklists can have a significant positive impact on health outcomes, including reducing mortality, complications, injuries and other patient harm.

How has the WHO checklist improved patient safety?

A retrospective study revealed that the use of the WHO checklist could have prevented 14.9% of all wrong-side errors (such as marking the wrong side) that did not lead to surgery being performed on the wrong side and 85.3% of all wrong-side errors that actually did lead to surgery being performed on the wrong side (9).

What is the purpose of checklist for patient care procedures?

These processes are used to identify, classify, and manage risks to the safety of an organisation's operation.