Checklist Medicine

This is from Philip K. Howard’s Wall Street Journal review of The Checklist Manifesto:

Stupid mistakes in surgery can be largely eliminated through the use of pre-operative checklists… At Johns Hopkins, strict cleanliness protocols reduced central-line infection rates (for example, infections caused by inserting a catheter into a vein) from 11% almost to zero. When hospitals in Michigan tried the protocols, the results were equally dramatic, saving hundreds of lives.

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