Surgical 'checklist' saves money, lives

The Newshour has a transcript of a feature report on Dr. Atul Gawande's new book, "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right," which "grew out of work he did for the World Health Organization, which asked him to help them find a way to reduce deaths in surgery." 

BETTY ANN BOWSER: A 50-year-old man is about to undergo emergency surgery at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston for a dangerous infection in an artery in his leg.
WOMAN: Nice big breaths, in and out. That's great.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: He's surrounded by technology and highly skilled doctors and nurses who spent years training for their profession.
WOMAN: You're doing great.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But they're about to employ something breathtakingly simple to make sure Mr. Wolf has a successful outcome. It's a checklist of 19 points, including making sure everybody in the O.R. introduces themselves (2/8).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.