Implementation of a surgical safety checklist for dental implant surgeries in a prosthodontics residency program

Statement of problem: Surgical safety checklists are commonly used in medical surgery to reduce errors, yet they are rarely used in the dental office. Presently, research on the implementation of surgical safety checklists in implant dentistry and user adherence is lacking.

Purpose: The primary purpose of this quality assessment study was to evaluate user compliance by using a surgical safety checklist for dental implant surgeries in a postgraduate prosthodontics program at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. The secondary purpose was to identify and analyze the nature, number, and frequency of omitted items on the surgical safety checklist.

Material and methods: All surgical safety checklists completed by 8 prosthodontic residents from 120 dental implant surgeries over the course of 1 academic year were collected as part of the program's quality assessment. Each surgical safety checklist contained 12 preoperative items and 14 postoperative items, giving a total of 26 items to be analyzed for each dental implant surgery. The collected data were then analyzed for user compliance, as well as the nature, number, and frequency of omitted items.

Results: Surgical safety checklists from 120 dental implant surgeries encompassing 262 implants were accessed for the academic year cycle from July 2017 to June 2018. There were 6 additional dental implant surgeries whose checklists were inaccessible. There was a 100% compliance rate for surgical safety checklist completion by all 8 prosthodontic residents across 120 dental implant surgeries. Within the checklists, the rate of incomplete responses or omissions was 2.4% (n=77). The 5 most commonly omitted items on the checklist by residents were preoperative photographs (0.29%), postoperative analgesics or steroids (0.26%), preoperative oral antiseptic rinse (0.22%), postoperative prescriptions (0.19%), and signed prosthodontic treatment plan forms (0.16%).

Conclusions: There was excellent compliance with the implemented dental implant surgical safety checklist across 8 prosthodontic residents, and the number of omitted items was small. Surgical safety checklists appear to be a straightforward method of helping prosthodontic residents in their dental implant surgical training to provide consistent and high-quality safe treatment for patients.