An integrated Programme to Promote safe Surgery best Practices in Italian hospitals

The paper discusses preliminary results of an integrated programme aiming to support continuous improvement processes in Italian hospitals, leveraging on the correct selection, adoption and monitoring of validated best practices covering the entire surgical process.Amultidisciplinary panel of experts adopted a multi centric process analysis approach to define the reference surgical pathway and a set of best practices that are characterized by their ability to ensure the effectiveness of one or more key safety tasks (KST). The study adopted a process-based approach to systematically identify: i) the role of each single KST in sustaining safety capabilities and objectives of the surgical process; ii) the contribution of best practices to the effective execution of KST. The pilot application in 41 surgical units demonstrated the ability of the programme to effectively support the coherent introduction of safe surgery best practices.