Checklists

A checklist for surgical teams that includes steps as basic as having the doctors and nurses introduce themselves can significantly lower the number of deaths and complications, researchers reported Wednesday.

'Surgical complications are a considerable cause of death and disability around the world,' the researchers wrote in the online edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. 'They are devastating to patients, costly to health care systems and often preventable.'

But a year after surgical teams at eight hospitals adopted a 19-item checklist, the average patient death rate fell more than 40 percent and the rate of complications fell by about a third, the researchers reported.

"Checklist Reduces Deaths in Surgery,"

New York Times

. . . the average patient death rate fell more than 40 percent and the rate of complications fell by about a third . . . ??!!