Atul has nailed it – in order, without a step missed.

I need something from the store, I make a list.

Atul has put together a short, insightful and compelling piece and I am a little sad that I waited so long to read it.  This is a must read for anyone in healthcare who wishes to make a big difference in and out of the operating room.

In the field of radiology we have structured reporting: liver, gall bladder, right and left adrenal gland, pancreas, spleen and so on as we read a CT scan of someone’s abdomen and pelvis. I say we ‘have’ because not everyone likes to list each organ. What if there is a very complicated post operative patient that does not fit into nice blocked text? What if I did four years of residency speaking in normal language and not comfortable breaking it down by organ?  There is research to support reporting as a list and reporting in free text but the important thing is to have a reproducible system to decrease variability and hopeful decrease errors.

Atul has done a nice job relating the importance of simplifying checklists to make them useful and demonstrating their utility in aviation, finance and medicine. I’m not sure if everyone will embrace the concepts in this book, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see people catch on and start the next wave of mobile apps with checklist type functions.

Nice work Dr. Gawande.