 | |
| Formation | 2011 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Atul Gawande |
| Headquarters | England |
Global CEO | Kris Torgeson |
| Website | https://www.lifebox.org/ |
| Remarks | Registered as a charity in England & Wales (#1143018) |
The Lifebox Foundation, commonly known as Lifebox, is a non-profit organization that improves the safety of surgery in low-income countries. [1] [2] [3]
Use of checklists in surgery reduces mortality by 24%, yet World Health Organization surgical checklists are published in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish and use of them is low in countries where people speak other languages, notably low-income countries. [2]
Lifebox was formed as a charity in the United Kingdom in 2011, [4] [5] and in the United States in 2015. [5]
The original formation of the organization included representatives of World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Harvard School of Public Health.
From its foundation until 2022 Lifebox board was chaired by Atul Gawande [6] . Since January 2022 the board of Lifebox has been chaired by Pauline Philip [7] .
The organization promotes the use of checklists before medical surgeries. [8] [9] Use of the checklists reduces surgical mortality and complications. [8]
Lifebox organized hospitals to pool their purchasing power to reduce the cost of pulse oximeters from US$2,000 to $250, [8] and distributed 22,000 hospital-grade pulse oximeters. [4] [10] [5] Lifebox also provides anesthesia training. [4]
The term abdominal surgery broadly covers surgical procedures that involve opening the abdomen (laparotomy). Surgery of each abdominal organ is dealt with separately in connection with the description of that organ Diseases affecting the abdominal cavity are dealt with generally under their own names.
Surgery is a medical specialty that uses manual and instrumental techniques to diagnose or treat pathological conditions, to alter bodily functions, to reconstruct or improve aesthetics and appearance, or to remove unwanted tissues or foreign bodies. The subject receiving the surgery is typically a person, but can also be a non-human animal.
A laparotomy is a surgical procedure involving a surgical incision through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. It is also known as a celiotomy.
Pulse oximetry is a noninvasive method for monitoring a person's blood oxygen saturation. Peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) readings are typically within 2% accuracy of the more accurate reading of arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) from arterial blood gas analysis. But the two are correlated well enough that the safe, convenient, noninvasive, inexpensive pulse oximetry method is valuable for measuring oxygen saturation in clinical use.
A checklist is a type of job aid used in repetitive tasks to reduce failure by compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention. Checklists are used both to ensure that safety-critical system preparations are carried out completely and in the correct order, and in less critical applications to ensure that no step is left out of a procedure. they help to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task. A basic example is the "to do list". A more advanced checklist would be a schedule, which lays out tasks to be done according to time of day or other factors, or a pre-flight checklist for an airliner, which should ensure a safe take-off.
A medical guideline is a document with the aim of guiding decisions and criteria regarding diagnosis, management, and treatment in specific areas of healthcare. Such documents have been in use for thousands of years during the entire history of medicine. However, in contrast to previous approaches, which were often based on tradition or authority, modern medical guidelines are based on an examination of current evidence within the paradigm of evidence-based medicine. They usually include summarized consensus statements on best practice in healthcare. A healthcare provider is obliged to know the medical guidelines of their profession, and has to decide whether to follow the recommendations of a guideline for an individual treatment.
Perioperative mortality has been defined as any death, regardless of cause, occurring within 30 days after surgery in or out of the hospital. Globally, 4.2 million people are estimated to die within 30 days of surgery each year. An important consideration in the decision to perform any surgical procedure is to weigh the benefits against the risks. Anesthesiologists and surgeons employ various methods in assessing whether a patient is in optimal condition from a medical standpoint prior to undertaking surgery, and various statistical tools are available. ASA score is the most well known of these.
Global health is the health of the populations in the worldwide context; it has been defined as "the area of study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide". Problems that transcend national borders or have a global political and economic impact are often emphasized. Thus, global health is about worldwide health improvement, reduction of disparities, and protection against global threats that disregard national borders, including the most common causes of human death and years of life lost from a global perspective.
Atul Atmaram Gawande is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. In public health, he was the chairman of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit that works on reducing deaths in surgery globally. On June 20, 2018, Gawande was named the CEO of healthcare venture Haven, owned by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase and stepped down as CEO in May 2020, remaining as executive chairman while the organization sought a new CEO.
Masimo Corporation is a health technology and consumer electronics company based in Irvine, California. The company primarily manufactures patient monitoring devices and technologies, including non-invasive sensors using optical technology, patient management, and telehealth platforms. In 2022, the company expanded into home audio by acquiring Sound United, and began to manufacture health-oriented wearable devices.
Peter J. Pronovost is Chief Quality and Transformation Officer at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, the main affiliate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Massi Kiani, known as Joe Kiani, is an Iranian-born American engineer, entrepreneur, and corporate executive. He is the founder of medical technology company Masimo, which was initially established in 1989. In 2021, he was appointed by President Joe Biden to serve on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
The World Health Organization (WHO) published the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist in 2008 in order to increase the safety of patients undergoing surgery. The checklist serves to remind the surgical team of important items to be performed before and after the surgical procedure in order to reduce adverse events such as surgical site infections or retained instruments. It is one affordable and sustainable tool for reducing deaths from surgery in low and middle income countries.
Martin Adel Makary is a British-American surgeon, professor, author and medical commentator. He practices surgical oncology and gastrointestinal laparoscopic surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, is Mark Ravitch Chair in Gastrointestinal Surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and teaches public health policy as Professor of Surgery and Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right is a December 2009 non-fiction book by Atul Gawande. It was released on December 22, 2009, through Metropolitan Books and focuses on the use of checklists in relation to several elements of daily and professional life. The book looks at the use of checklists in the business world and the medical profession, with Gawande examining how it could be used for greater efficiency, consistency and safety. Gawande stated he was inspired to write The Checklist Manifesto after reading a story about a young child who survived a fall into a frozen pond and discovering the physician who saved her relied heavily on checklists.
Kathryn Ann Kelly "Kelly" McQueen is an American anesthesiologist and global health expert. She currently practices anesthesiology at the UW Health University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin and serves as the chair for the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public health.
Maternal mortality in India is the maternal death of a woman in India during pregnancy or after pregnancy, including post-abortion or post-birth periods. Different countries and cultures have different rates and causes for maternal death. Within India, there is a marked variation in healthcare access between regions and in socioeconomic factors, accordingly, there is also variation in maternal deaths for various states, regions, and demographics of women.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted hospitals around the world. Many hospitals have scaled back or postponed non-emergency care. This has medical consequences for the people served by the hospitals, and it has financial consequences for the hospitals. Health and social systems across the globe are struggling to cope. The situation is especially challenging in humanitarian, fragile and low-income country contexts, where health and social systems are already weak. Health facilities in many places are closing or limiting services. Services to provide sexual and reproductive health care risk being sidelined, which will lead to higher maternal mortality and morbidity. The pandemic also resulted in the imposition of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in places such as California and New York for all public workers, including hospital staff.
Takuo Aoyagi was a Japanese engineer, known for his work leading to the modern pulse oximeter.
Global neurosurgery is a field at the intersection of public health and clinical neurosurgery. It aims to expand provision of improved and equitable neurosurgical care globally.