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New Hampshire hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers have voluntarily adopted a safety checklist for surgeries and other invasive procedures, according to the New Hampshire Hospital Association’s Foundation for Healthy Communities. The protocol is based on a checklist developed by the World Health Organization. The checklist identifies three phases of a procedure for which medical team members confirm appropriate tasks have been completed. For example, it may include processes to verify the patient’s identity, procedure and correct surgical site; processes to verify if the patients have any known allergies; a time-out before surgical incision; and verbal confirmation after the procedure that instrument, sponge, and needle counts are correct.