A study out of Canada offers a surprising counterclaim to a 2009 claim that surgical checklists can reduce deaths by 47% after high-risk surgeries.

 

A report published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine followed a study of 100 Ontario hospitals conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto, according to the magazine Outpatient Surgery.

 

Researchers studied surgery-related deaths or complications for the three-month period  before hospitals began using a checklist program and the three–month period after the program began. The study found no statistically significant differences in outcomes.