The goal of the WHO-sponsored Safe Surgery Saves Lives Challenge is to improve the safety of surgical care around the world by ensuring adherence to proven standards of care in all states. The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist was found to improve compliance with standards and decrease complications from surgery in the eight pilot sites where it was formally rested.  The 2009 edition of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist, the accompanying Implementation Manual, the updated WHO Guidelines for Safe Surgery, video demonstrations of how to use the checklist, and other resources can be downloaded from the WHO Safe Surgery web page linked below.