We have much to learn from the airline industry that has popularized pre-flight safety checklists, where team behavior is the norm, and the co-pilot is expected to question the pilot.

What pilots can teach hospital about patient safety.A growing number of healthcare providers are trying to learn from aviation accidents and, more specifically, from what the airlines have done to prevent them.

These observations and practices have led to changed behavior in the operating room where now the surgeon (no less strong willed than pilots) must check with the anesthesiologist and the nurse to be sure, for example, that the correct side of the body is being operated on.

We know that many errors are related to poor communications between healthcare providers and their patients.

Arthur Garson Jr. MD, MPH
Dean, School of Medicine & VP University of Virginia
Healthcare Half-Truths 2007

In the last five years, several major hospitals have hired professional pilots to train their critical-care staff members on how to apply aviation safety principles to their work.

They learn standard cockpit protocols, checklists and crew briefings to improve patient care, if not save patients' lives.

Kate Murphy
New York Times
October 31, 2006