A comment yesterday pooh-poohed the combined Happy Medrants checklist discussion. This physician does understand that students and interns learn all these things. But as a medical student points out – that is not the point of a checklist.
The point of checklists comes when we have a complex day and many detractors to our thinking. We know everything on a checklists, but a checklist makes us consider each detail each day or each time we do that procedure.
I know how to care for diabetes, but do I remember every detail every time?
Reading The Checklist Manifesto made me think. When an activity is repetitive, I believe using a checklist will decrease errors.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Most defects in schematic behavior are due to noncognitive errors (also known as “slips”), which are defined as inadvertent or unconscious lapses in expected automatic behavior. from: ML Astion et al., “Classifying Laboratory Incident Reports to Identify Problems That Jeopardize Patient Safety,” American Journal of Clinical Pathology, 120, no. 1 (2003): 18–26.
I think that the process of creating a checklist is just as important as utilizing it.