About Us
A global team founded to tackle the crisis of unsafe surgery
Dr. Atul Gawande co-founded Lifebox and served as Chair of the organization for its first ten years. As Chair, Dr. Gawande oversaw our global work to improve the safety of surgery and anesthesia in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries.
Dr. Gawande led the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop the Surgical Safety Checklist – a 19 item communication tool that has been found to cut death rates nearly in half. The Checklist included a pulse oximeter, a piece of equipment essential for monitoring patients during anesthesia. At the time the Checklist was developed, thousands of operating rooms around the world lacked this device. Lifebox was founded to close this ‘global oximetry gap’ and to date, has distributed more than 32,000 pulse oximeters to healthcare providers around the world. Lifebox’s work has since expanded across three core pillars of safer surgery and anesthesia – anesthesia safety, surgical infection, and teamwork.
Dr. Atul Gawande Co-founded Lifebox and served as Chair of the organization for its first ten years. As Chair, he oversaw Lifebox’s global work to improve the safety of surgery and anesthesia worldwide.
“Through Lifebox, an NGO I co-founded, we lowered the cost of oxygen-monitoring equipment for operating rooms in low-income countries by 80 percent.”
Dr. Atul Gawande, Lifebox Co-Founder
“Through Lifebox, an NGO I co-founded, we lowered the cost of oxygen-monitoring equipment for operating rooms in low-income countries by 80 percent.”Dr. Atul Gawande, Lifebox Co-Founder
