This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Surgical checklist use reduces chance of omitting lifesaving steps by 74%
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Surgeons are more likely to use life-saving care processes when a checklist is present, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“For decades, we in surgery have believed that surgical crisis situations are too complex for simple checklists to be helpful. This work shows that assumption is wrong,” Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, lead author and surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, stated in a press release.
Gawande and colleagues recruited 17 operating room teams for the novel study and conducted 106 simulated surgical crisis scenarios — half the teams used a crisis checklist and the other teams managed the crises by memory alone. The teams that used a checklist missed critical steps 6% of the time, while the teams working from memory, without a checklist, missed critical steps 23% of the time, according to the abstract.
“Four years ago, we showed that completing a routine checklist before surgery can substantially reduce the likelihood of a major complication. This new work shows that use of a set of carefully crafted checklists during an operating room crisis also has the potential to markedly improve care and safety.” Gawande stated in the release.
Among study participants, 97% noted they would want a checklist present should an operative crisis occur.
|
|
Gawande noted in the release that his institution now uses such checklists to help their surgical teams and improve patient safety.
“Given these findings, Brigham and Women’s Hospital has now committed to implementing these checklists to increase the safety of our patients and to evaluate the effect they have on care,” Gawande stated. “I would encourage other hospitals and surgical centers to consider doing the same.”
Disclosure: The authors received funding from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality to conduct this study.