Surgical care has been an essential component of health care worldwide for over a century. As the incidences of traumatic injuries, cancers and cardiovascular disease continue to rise, the impact of surgical intervention on public health systems will continue to grow. Surgery is often the only therapy that can alleviate disabilities and reduce the risk of death from common conditions.

Every year, many millions of people undergo surgical treatment, and surgical interventions account for an estimated 13% of the world’s total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). While surgical procedures are intended to save lives, unsafe surgical care can cause substantial harm. Given the ubiquity of surgery, this has significant implications:

• the reported crude mortality rate after major surgery is 0.5-5%;
• complications after inpatient operations occur in up to 25% of patients;
• in industrialized countries, nearly half of all adverse events in hospitalized patients are related to surgical care;
• at least half of the cases in which surgery led to harm are considered preventable;
• mortality from general anesthesia alone is reported to be as high as one in 150 in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa.