If a Checklist Saves Lives, Why Not?

There are just under quarter billion (yes, billion) surgical procedures performed around the world each year—that’s according to the World Health Organization—and a “significant percentage” (says the selfsame WHO) “result in preventable complications and deaths.”

So the WHO got a surgeon from Harvard to work with experts in 200 countries on a solution and the team has just held a global media event to announce the medical breakthrough that will help save millions of lives; it’s a checklist. Yes, the team has developed a simple checklist that requires routine sign-in and sign-out procedures performed before and at the end of surgery. They include basic steps like confirming the patient’s identity, ensuring anesthesia has been administered, and counting the number of syringes, gauzes and sponges at the end of the surgical procedure to make sure none have been forgotten in the patient’s body.

“A lot of us feel as if we don't know why the checklist hadn't been there", says Dr. Patchen Dellinger, vice chair of surgery, at the University of Washington’s Medical Center (UWMC), one of eight hospitals around the world piloting the use of the list. UWMC started using the list in April this year, and Delinger says it has already helped cut patient safety errors in half. It will become mandatory for all surgical procedures in the fall. A registered nurse at the hospital says that with wider use of the list, she will no longer have that "missing" feeling.

Now the WHO says signing up to use the list is voluntary, but I think—as this video shows—the list is such a simple, low-cost and effective method of saving precious lives that I propose it should be made mandatory in the US--the country that claims to have the best health system in the world. Do you think this is too important an innovation (if you will allow the term) to slowly and quietly roll out? Shouldn't’t we get Congress and others actively engaged in getting the list adopted by hospitals right across the country say in the next 1-2 years?

What else do you think we can do to create awareness about this Safe Surgery Saves Lives campaign? How about sending this link to the administrator of your local hospital and asking them to sign up to the voluntary program?

You could use the UWMC example to suggest how much liability insurance they could save, and mention how simple the checklist really is.

And if you have a friend or loved one who’s going in for surgery send them the link and ask them to send it to their surgeon in advance?