Today, the Washington Post reported on a new study quantifying how often surgeons make "never" mistakes, i.e., mistakes that should never happen, such as leaving an object in a patient, performing the wrong procedure, or performing the procedure on the wrong body part. Apparently, between 1990 and 2010, about 500 "never" events were reported to malpractice insurers annually.
The Post article notes that other studies have shown that implementing things like checklists can reduce these types of mistakes.
Post coverage is here (with charts), and the study press release is here.
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