VOA标准英语2011--Hospital Checklists Save Lives

Hospitals can be dangerous places. We go there to get well, but sometimes people get sicker or even die because of infections they contract in the hospital.
A new program to reduce infections with relatively¹ simple and inexpensive quality control measures is saving lives, according to a new study.
Johns Hopkins University Medical School professor Peter Pronovost pioneered the use of hospital checklists to reduce infections.
He and his colleagues started with a list of about 90 recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "and we elected to say, well, I can't do 90 things as a practicing [doctor]. Let me cull² it out and pick the five most important things on that guideline and make sure we do those."
They focused their program on reducing infections in the central line, the tube inserted by needle into a patient's vein³ to deliver medications and for other purposes. Central lines are a common source of serious infection in hospital intensive care units.
The checklist includes simple things like hand washing and disinfecting the skin before the central line is inserted. It has previously⁴ been shown to reduce the infection rate to near zero.
But did a lower infection rate translate to a lower death rate?
To find out, Pronovost and his colleagues compared hospital deaths in the state of Michigan, where the checklist program was in use, with nearby states that weren't in the program.
"What we found was that the mortality of patients in Michigan went down by 10 percent more than if they were in the 11 surrounding states."
While the quality improvement program may be built around a simple checklist, Pronovost stresses that it really is about changing how medical staff work together so that, for example, doctors listen to nurses, not just the other way around.
"A big part of our program was this culture change, because when doctors were using the checklist, 25 percent of the time they forgot [one of the items], so we asked the nurses to work with the doctors. And if the nurses saw the doctors not comply with the checklist, they can make the doctors go back and fix the mistake."
Pronovost says the quality improvement program is cost-effective and well-suited to resource-poor hospitals and clinics. "We've done it in Peru and we've just started a program in Pakistan and we're looking to put it into Africa. So it absolutely works."

1 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

2 cull   

v.拣选；剔除；n.拣出的东西；剔除

参考例句：

• It is usually good practice to cull the poorest prior to field planting.通常在实践上的好方法是在出圃栽植前挑出最弱的苗木。
• Laura was passing around photographs she'd culled from the albums at home.劳拉正在分发她从家里相册中挑选出的相片。

3 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

4 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。