Can the surgical checklist reduce the risk of wrong site surgery in orthopaedics?--Can the checklist help? Supporting evidence from analysis of a national patient incident reporting system

Surgical procedures are now very common, with estimates ranging from 4% of the general population having an operation per annum in economically-developing countries; this rising to 8% in economically-developed countries. Whilst these surgical procedures typically result in considerable improvements to health outcomes, it is increasingly appreciated that surgery is a high risk industry. Tools developed in the aviation industry are beginning to be used to minimise the risk of errors in surgery. One such tool is the World Health Organization's (WHO) surgery checklist. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) manages the largest database of patient safety incidents (PSIs) in the world, already having received over three million reports of episodes of care that could or did result in iatrogenic harm. The aim of this study was to estimate how many incidents of wrong site surgery in orthopaedics that have been reported to the NPSA could have been prevented by the WHO surgical checklist.