Washington Injury Law Blog

Thousands of people have surgery every month in Washington. Medical errors can occur during those surgeries that are preventable. Things like operating on the wrong body part, leaving sponges in the patient’s body, or even doing the wrong procedure on a patient happen all too frequently.

A recent study has shown that doctors who followed a 19-item checklist of steps before surgery cut the death rate from surgery by almost 50%. Wow! Why hasn’t this been done before? Dr. Atul Gawande a Harvard surgeon published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing the decreased death rate and that complications from surgery are also reduced by 1/3 when the 19-item checklist was used.

U.S. hospitals are required to take some precautions, but not the 19-item checklist used in the study which is far more detailed than most hospitals currently use.  Hopefully, all hospitals will adopt this concept soon, it seems like a no brainer to me.

If you’re having surgery in the near future ask your surgeon if the 19-item checklist recommended by the World Health Organization will be used. If not, ask why not and if it can be used. It will significantly reduced your risk or complications or death during and following your surgery.

After all approximately 100,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors. It just makes sense to do all you can to make sure you don’t end up as one of those statistics.

Max Meyers, Esq.