Making Surgery Safer

There is a great article in  today’s  New York Times titled "Simple Checklist Makes Surgery Safer."

An excerpt:  "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.’

The Times article is based on an article in the January 14, 2009 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, which reports on a research project conducted by the World Health Organization. 

Here is the "Elements of Surgical Safety Checklist." 

This article is a keeper.