Apples for Health- Expert: Patient safety not rocket science

Expert: Patient safety not rocket science

MEMPHIS, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- A World Health Organization study found surgical checklists reduce medical errors, but some U.S. hospitals have been doing this for years, an expert says.

Several medical institutions such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center or The Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions have been successfully implementing safety tools like checklists for their physicians and nurses for years, said Capt. Steve Harden of LifeWings Partners, a provider of aviation-based safety systems for hospitals.

Harden, a commercial airline pilot and former military pilot who has helped more than 90 U.S. healthcare organizations adopt aviation-based safety tools, says, that faced with a rising tide of medical errors, leading hospitals began turning to commercial aviation safety experts as far back as 1999 for advice on how to make their operations safer.

"It's not rocket science. Rigid use of safety checklists is one of the key reasons commercial aviation travel is the safest transportation system in the world," Harden says in a statement. "It makes perfect sense that checklists would work for potentially dangerous activities like surgery."

The best hospitals figured out long ago what the WHO is just now publishing -- checklists save lives, Harden said.