Surgical teams that used a checklist performed safer surgeries with fewer deaths and complications, compared with those who didn’t, according to the results of a yearlong study of surgical teams at eight hospitals that adopted a 19-item checklist. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found the average patient death rate fell more than 40 percent and the rate of complications fell by about 33 percent.

Checklist items included a requirement that the nursing staff confirmed everything had been sterilized, and all needed equipment and medical images were present.

Before the operation began, the checklist called for the team to confirm the patient’s name and the procedure. Afterward, the doctors and nurses reviewed what had been done, discussed any special steps that needed to be taken in recovery, and confirmed no equipment had been left in the patient.

The National Safety Council is calling for a nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving. Five states—California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Washington—plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands now have laws that prohibit driving while talking or texting on hand-held cell phones.

A study by the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis found cell phone use while driving accounts for about 6 percent of crashes each year, resulting in 330,000 injuries, 12,000 serious injuries, and 2,600 deaths.

A report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found drivers who used cell phones were four times more likely to be in a crash. A study at the University of Utah found no difference in driver concentration between using hand-held or handsfree devices.

People who are only a few pounds overweight and sedentary have an increased risk for heart failure, according to a study of doctors published in the journal Circulation.

The 20-year study of more than 21,000 American doctors measured the influence of being overweight and inactive on development of heart failure, the progressive loss of the organ’s ability to pump blood.

Adjusting for other risk factors, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the study found a 49 percent increase in heart failure in overweight men compared with those at a recommended weight.

Men who engaged in physical activity one to three times a week had an 18 percent reduction in heart failure risk; those active five to seven times a week had a 36 percent risk reduction

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