WHY DOCTORS SHOULD USE CHECKLISTS.

WHY DOCTORS SHOULD USE CHECKLISTS. In the New Yorker for December 10, Atul Gawande argues that lives would be saved if doctors and nurses used checklists for complicated procedures. I was surprised that they generally don’t. An Israeli study (by engineers) found that there were 178 daily tasks that had be done correctly in an intensive care unit, and on average, one per cent was done wrong–about two a day. A very good batting average, but two errors a day is disastrous. One doctor, Peter Pronovost, developed a checklist for putting in lines for intensive care patients; in fifteen months of use, it was estimated to have saved eight lives. Other checklists have had impressive successes. Gawande asks, “Does it take all that [brilliance and education] to figure out what house movers, wedding planners, and tax accountants figured out ages ago?” The article says that checklists are still not used much. Gawande says of Peter Pronovost, “He’s focussed on work that is not normally considered a significant contribution in academic medicine. As a result, few other researchers are venturing to extend his achievements. Yet his work has already saved more lives than that of any laboratory scientist in the past decade.”