The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a safety checklist which should ensure a much lower risk of surgical complications if properly followed. The simple procedures could save the lives of millions who die due to the negligence, forgetfulness and mistakes of surgeons.

The World Health Organization says that about half of surgery complications are preventable. In developing countries around 10 percent die from major surgical operations. Testing of the safety guidelines in eight pilot sites worldwide doubled their chances of avoiding problems post-op.

One of the interesting elements of the new safety procedures is that a checklist coordinator is assigned to confirm that the surgical team has taken stock of each item before moving on to the next phase of the procedure. The checklist was put together by a team at Harvard School of Public Health, following a consultation with more than 200 medical organizations from around the world.

The checklist has three major steps: things to do before the anesthesia, things to do before the patient is incised and, finally, what to check for before the patient is taken out of the operating room. All steps are things that most surgeons already do, but the problem is they don't do it all the time, for all patients.

With more than 200 million surgeries yearly, it's quite obvious that disregarding safety procedures in just a few cases amounts to millions of deaths which could be prevented with more attention and patience given to each step of a surgery. The team found that there was a 64 percent probability that at least one of the procedures was forgotten.

The idea was actually stolen from... pilots. Pilots have specially designed checklists which ensure that vital elements of the aircraft are indeed working and expected, before take-off. In flight it might be a little too late to notice malfunctions. The same has been applied to operating rooms. Before the patient "flies" away from the OR, the surgical team needs to verify that everything is in order.