Materials > Background Information > Pilot Study -- NEJM

In 2008, the Safe Surgery Saves Lives Team piloted the checklist in 8 sites across the globe.  The results of this study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 2009.

The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist reduced the rate of deaths and complications by more than one third in our eight pilot hospitals.  The rate of major inpatient complications dropped from 11% to 7%, and the inpatient death rate following major operations fell from 1.5% to 0.8% after implementation of the checklist.  The effect was of similar magnitude in both high and low/middle income country sites.




The full text of the paper is available free of charge as an Online First publication here.  It appeared in print in the January 29th issue.