First International Consultation on Improving the Safety of Surgical Care
The First International Consultation on Improving the Safety of Surgical Care took place at the World Health Organization in Geneva from 11-12 January 2007. The Chair of the Consultation was Dr Atul Gawande who is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University, and Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School General and Endocrine Surgeon, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr Gawande is leading the 2nd Global Patient Safety Challenge: Safe Surgery Saves Lives.
Other important participants included Sir Liam Donaldson, Chair of the World Alliance for Patient Safety and Professor Didier Pittet, Leader of the 1st Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care.
The Consultation brought together over 50 participants drawn from across the six WHO regions, including WHO staff. It examined the current environment of surgical care across the globe and debated potential criteria that might be adopted to improve the safety of surgery. Currently there is only limited information on the worldwide environment of surgery, including insufficient data on the resources and infrastructure committed to surgical procedures.
The objective of the first consultation were to address two questions that align with the goals of the 2nd Global Patient Safety Challenge:
- What are the potential minimum standards of surgical care that can be universally applied across countries and settings and will improve the safety of surgical care?
- What measurement systems can be implemented to monitor the progress and improvement of surgical safety resulting from these standards?