Having a written checklist for pre- and post-surgical care is an important tool for the medical team and helps to reduce the number of complications after a procedure, according to the results of a study published in the most recent New England Journal of Medicine.
The death rate at hospitals which used the checklists fell from 1.5 percent to 0.8 percent, while control facilities which did not use them saw no change. Additionally, the study found a 31 percent reduction per patient in the rate of complications experienced at hospitals which participated in the new program.
MedPage Today says fewer patients in checklist hospitals required a follow-up procedure to correct a problem found in the primary surgery, and that temporary disabilities resulting from surgery were also down. That publication also reports that previous studies – including one headed by noted surgeon and author Dr. Atul Gawande – had reached similar conclusions about the efficacy of checklists for surgical procedures themselves, while the more recent research centered on pre- and post-operative care.
Medicaid recently announced that it would stop paying for medical mistakes acquired in the hospital, as a result many private health insurance companies have decided to follow the same procedure of nonpayment for medical “never events” or mistakes that should never happen at a hospital. The 2010 federal health law expanded the nonpayment policy nationwide for medical mistakes, according to a June 2011 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
