Children’s hospital reports long run without serious surgical safety events
A Lurie Children’s study links operating room safety changes to a 585-day stretch without a serious surgical safety event.
By Tom Brennan · Health & Medicine Correspondent
3 min read
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago reported a more than 13-fold improvement in surgical safety after introducing a set of operating room safety measures. The finding matters for pediatric hospitals because operating rooms are fast, complex settings where small failures can carry high stakes, according to a study published in Pediatrics.
The hospital said its serious surgical safety event rate changed from about one event per 2,977 surgical cases to no serious safety events across 39,654 cases. The event-free period lasted 585 days, according to the study by Michael E. Natarus and colleagues.
The work focused on system-level changes in pediatric perioperative care, an area where published evidence remains limited, according to Thomas Inge, co-author of the study, surgeon-in-chief and chair of surgery at Lurie Children's, and a professor of surgery and pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Inge said in the hospital’s announcement that operating rooms rank among health care’s higher-risk environments because of their speed, complexity and consequences. He credited the Department of Surgery team with adopting safety practices while the number of surgical cases rose, according to Lurie Children's.
Three safety changes
The study identified three main interventions used across the hospital’s operating rooms. Lurie Children's described the effort as grounded in high-reliability principles, a safety approach that emphasizes consistent practices, attention to risk and staff communication.
Surgical safety stand-downs: Twice each year, the Department of Surgery stopped nonessential operations for one hour so the perioperative team could review safety data, hear from a patient’s family and reset expectations around safety culture, according to the hospital.
Error prevention training: Staff received instruction in speaking up, asking questions, paying attention to detail and communicating clearly, according to the study. Lurie Children's said 87% of staff completed required education modules during the first year.
Safety coaches: The hospital trained frontline coaches and placed them in operating rooms to give real-time peer feedback and demonstrate safe practices, according to the study.
Derek Wheeler, senior author of the study and executive vice president and chief operating officer at Lurie Children's, said the interventions are practical and could be repeated at other institutions. He said the hospital’s continuing focus on safety culture and improvement was central to the results.
Wheeler also said safety reporting increased during the initiative. Lurie Children's said that rise suggests staff felt more able to speak up when they saw a potential problem, allowing teams to respond before patient care was harmed.
The study, titled “Supporting Safer Surgery: System-Level Interventions to Enhance Pediatric Perioperative Safety,” was published in Pediatrics. Lurie Children's provided the announcement, and the journal article lists the DOI as 10.1542/peds.2025-072662.
This story draws on original reporting from Medical Xpress.