From the *Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA; †Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; ‡Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA; §World Health Organization Patient Safety Programme, Geneva, Switzerland; and ¶Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA.
T.G.W., A.B.H., G.D., W.R.B., and A.A.G. were responsible for the initial conception of this work. Members of the Safe Surgery Saves Lives Investigators implemented the checklist at their respective institutions and supported data collection. Members of the Safe Surgery Saves Lives Study Group contributed to the study design and data collection processes. A.B.H. led the data collection process. T.G.W., A.B.H., W.R.B., S.R.L., and A.A.G. analyzed and interpreted the data. T.G.W. drafted the report, which was critically revised by T.G.W., A.B.H., G.D., W.R.B., S.R.L., and A.A.G. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by grants from the World Health Organization.
We report no potential conflict of interest relevant to this article.
Reprints: Atul A. Gawande, MD, Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis St., Boston, MA 02115. E-mail: safesurgery@hsph.harvard.edu.
