Discussion Links for The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande speaking about the power of Checklists




The official site, with lots of links to reviews
Inc this from The Freakonomics Blog
"If there is one topic that I have no natural affinity for, it is checklists. I don’t use checklists. I’m not interested in checklists.
Yet, against all odds, I read Atul Gawande’s new book about checklists, The Checklist Manifesto in one sitting yesterday, which is an amazing tribute to the book that Gawande has crafted. Not only is the book loaded with fascinating stories, but it honestly changed the way I think about the world. It is the best book I’ve read in ages.
The book’s main point is simple: no matter how expert you may be, well-designed check lists can improve outcomes (even for Gawande’s own surgical team). The best-known use of checklists is by airplane pilots. Among the many interesting stories in the book is how this dedication to checklists arose among pilots.
Even more interesting are the stories about Walmart’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and the real reason why David Lee Roth used to demand that there be a bowl of M&M’s with all the brown ones removed in his dressing room backstage.

A review in the New York Times
"Despite its evangelical tone, “The Checklist Manifesto” is an essential primer on complexity in medicine. Doctors resist checklists because we want to believe our profession is as much an art as a science. When Gawande surveyed members of the staff at eight hospitals about a checklist developed by his research team that nearly halved the number of surgical deaths, 20 percent said they thought it wasn’t easy to use and did not improve safety. But when asked whether they would want the checklist used if they were having an operation, 93 percent said yes."

& in the Wall Street Journal
"Dr. Gawande wants to make a bigger point: that formal checklists, if not exactly holding the secret to human success, will make a major difference in many other aspects of life, such as business and law: "Checklists seem able to defend everyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized. They provide a kind of cognitive net. They catch mental flaws.""