(Update) If Surgeons Keep A Checklist, They Erase Many Errors

Washington (dbTechno) – Researchers have found that if surgeons keep and follow a simple checklist, they could be able to erase many of their errors and save more lives than they already do on a daily basis.

The new study was led by Dr. Atul Gawande from the Harvard School of Public Healthy and Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, Boston.

Researchers looked into whether or not a checklist would help erase many of the errors that occur during surgery.

To test out this idea, they collected data on 7,788 patients in total, with half going through surgery that involved a checklist, and half going without a checklist being used.

These checklists were not very advanced, but checked for many important things.

This included the name of the patient, the procedure that was being done, etc.

What they found was that by using the checklist, the rate of major complications was reduced from 11% down to 7%.

On top of that, deaths dropped nearly in half with a rate of 1.5% going down to 0.8%.

The checklist was used in hospitals all around the world for the test including New Delhi, Tanzania, London, and other locations.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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