Strategies for Improving Surgical Quality — Checklists and Beyond.

The author discusses a study on the impact of checklists on the improvement of surgical quality, featured in the November 2010 issue of the "New England Journal of Medicine." The study procedure included the evaluation of the comprehensive surgical checklist intervention in several regional and tertiary care centers in the Netherlands. The Surgical Patient Safety System (SURPASS) was used in the study. The author concludes that checklists may be useful in enhancing the implementation of processes of care but will not identify the best practices.