title: Benchmarking inadvertent perioperative hypothermia guidelines with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To improve standards of patients' care and safety, we benchmarked our practice guidelines of prevention of inadvertent perioperative hypothermia with those of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) of the United Kingdom.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study started in November 2008 and lasted for 18 months and was conducted at the Armed Forces Hospital, Wadi Al-Dawasir, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The NICE clinical guidelines (CG65) published in April 2008 were downloaded from its website. Each practiced item in our guidelines was compared with its equivalent of NICE guidelines, absent equivalent NICE guidelines on our list were immediately added and implemented. To ensure compliance, follow-up audits took place every 3 months for an 18-month period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Benchmarking demonstrated that most steps taken in our hospital match those of NICE guidelines, except for guidelines governing the preoperative phase. This phase was added to our policy and procedures guidelines and immediately implemented. The follow-up audits carried out every 3 months showed that the incidence of hypothermia fell from a previous 1.5 to 0.3%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Benchmarking is an evaluation of the current position of own practice compared to best practice to identify areas and means of performance improvement. Benchmarking must be part of quality improvement programs in healthcare. In this study, improvement in the service delivered to patients resulted in a drop in the incidence of inadvertent perioperative hypothermia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ear, Nose, & Throat Surgery, College of Medicine, King Khalid University, PO Box 3877, Abha 61481, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. dralient@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Ali S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Al-Qahtani
authors.forename: Farouk M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Messahel
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking; D006801:Humans; D007035:Hypothermia / Q000517:prevention & control*; D007431:Intraoperative Complications / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019990:Perioperative Care; D059035:Perioperative Period; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative