In our eight hospitals, we saw improvements in administering antibiotics to reduce infections, in use of oxygen monitoring during operations, in making sure teams had the right patient and right procedure before making an incision. But these particular improvements could not explain why unrelated complications like bleeding fell, for example. We surmised that improved communication was the key. Spot surveys of random staff members coming out of surgery after the checklist was in effect did indeed report a significant increase in the level of communication. There was also a notable correlation
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