Dive Brief:
- Surgical safety checklists didn't improve operative mortality, readmission rates or emergency department visits within 30 days after discharge at Canadian hospitals, according to a new study appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine.
- To do the study, researchers compared operative mortality, surgical complication rates, readmission rates and emergency department visits within 30 days after discharge before and after a group of Ontario hospitals implemented the surgical checklist.
- There was no association between the surgical safety checklist implementation and significant reduction of death or complications, according to researchers.
Dive Insight:
One thing the study doesn't appear to have addressed is whether the incidence of "never events" was reduced by surgical checklist use. That itself would be a benefit worthy of keeping the checklist in place. That being said, it's disappointing to see that such a promising effort does not seem to have made an impact on surgical mortality and safety.