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Looking Forward To A Safer Future: The New Who Guidelines For Safe Surgery, Jed S. Duff

Nursing Conference Papers

Each year in Australia there are approximately 2 million hospital admissions for surgical services (Australia’s Health, 2008) and this number is set to grow significantly, with forecasts of at least a 22% increase by 2021 (Birrell, Hawthorne & Rapson, 2003). Surprisingly, for such a high-risk high-volume specialty, we have very little data on perioperative adverse events. This lack of even basic data means that we are unable to track event rates, leaving us oblivious to the full extent of the problem.

Research on intraoperative adverse events tells us that the rate of major complications is between 3-16%, with a mortality …