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Spend five to save lives

12 November 2021

Surgical briefing awareness day – 27 June 2019

Does your surgical team routinely hold a start-of-list briefing before the day's operations begin?

Briefings take just five minutes and have a significant and positive impact on patient safety by improving communication and teamwork, reducing delays and identifying potential risks prior to surgery.

The Health Quality & Safety Commission is encouraging surgical teams in district health boards and private surgical hospitals throughout New Zealand to hold a start-of-list briefing on Thursday 27 June 2019.

The surgical briefing awareness day aims to make start-of-list briefings a standard part of the surgical list, by demonstrating that the time taken to hold a briefing is five minutes well spent.

Every surgical team who participates, completes a two-minute post-briefing survey at the end of the day and (ideally) submits a photo of the briefing, will go into a draw to win a morning tea for their team.

A resource kit with information about surgical briefings is available on our website. More resources will be added over the coming weeks. This will include a poster, factsheet, tips for holding a briefing and a link to the post-briefing survey.

If you’d like to receive updates about the surgical briefing awareness day, please email communications@hqsc.govt.nz.