Cardiac surgery is a high-risk procedure performed by a multidisciplinary team using complex tools and technologies. Efforts to improve cardiac surgery safety have been ongoing for more than a decade, yet the literature provides little guidance regarding best practices for identifying errors and improving patient safety. This focused review of the literature was undertaken as part of the FOCUS initiative (Flawless Operative Cardiovascular Unified Systems), a multifaceted effort supported by the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists Foundation to identify hazards and develop evidence-based protocols to improve cardiac surgery safety. Hazards were defined as anything that posed a potential or real risk to the patient, including errors, near misses, and adverse events. Of the 1438 articles identified for title review, 390 underwent full abstract screening, and 69 underwent full article review, which in turn yielded 55 meeting the inclusion criteria for this review. Two key themes emerged. First, studies were predominantly reactive (responding to an event or report) instead of proactive (using prospective designs such as self-assessments and external reviewers, etc.) and very few tested interventions. Second, minor events were predictive of major problems: multiple, often minor, deviations from normal procedures caused a cascade effect, resulting in major distractions that ultimately led to major events. This review fills an important gap in the literature on cardiac surgery safety, that of systematically identifying and categorizing known hazards according to their primary systemic contributor (or contributors). We conclude with recommendations for improving patient outcomes by building a culture of safety, promoting transparency, standardizing training, increasing teamwork, and monitoring performance. Finally, there is an urgent need for studies that evaluate interventions to mitigate the inherent risks of cardiac surgery.

Background Our objective is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of investments in bike lanes using New York City's (NYC) fiscal year 2015 investment as a case study. We also provide a generalizable model, so that localities can estimate their return on bike lane investments. Methods and findings We evaluate the cost-effectiveness of bike lane construction using a two-stage model. Our regression analysis, to estimate the marginal addition of lane miles on the expansion in bike ridership, reveals that the 45.5 miles of bike lanes NYC constructed in 2015 at a cost of $8 109 511.47 may increase the probability of riding bikes by 9.32%. In the second stage, we constructed a Markov model to estimate the cost-effectiveness of bike lane construction. This model compares the status quo with the 2015 investment. We consider the reduced risk of injury and increased probability of ridership, costs associated with bike lane implementation and maintenance, and effectiveness due to physical activity and reduced pollution. We use Monte Carlo simulation and one-way sensitivity analysis to test the reliability of the base-case result. This model reveals that over the lifetime of all people in NYC, bike lane construction produces additional costs of $2.79 and gain of 0.0022 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per person. This results in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $1297/QALY gained (95% CI −$544/QALY gained to $5038/QALY gained). Conclusions We conclude that investments in bicycle lanes come with an exceptionally good value because they simultaneously address multiple public health problems. Investments in bike lanes are more cost-effective than the majority of preventive approaches used today.