Wednesday night, I had the privilege to stand along with a couple hundred people and listen to Atul Gawande talk about his new book "The Checklist Manifesto" at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. Gawande is not only an author, but a surgeon in Boston and director of the World Health Organization's Global Challenge for Safer Surgical Care. His recent article in the New Yorker on Medicare spending last year was said to have been required reading in the White House.
I haven't had the chance to read Dr. Gawande's book, it was sold out by the time I arrived for his talk, but I'm looking forward to it.
To summarize his lecture, Checklist Manifesto is about coping with the complexities many of us experience in our own lives, particularly in the workplace. We're expected to do more, often with less, while maintaining the same or better quality of services we provide or goods we make. Meeting all the intricacies of various expectations is a tough task no matter who you are: a doctor, nurse, biller or practice manager.
I don't think Gawande believes checklists will solve all life's problems, but a checklist can help you do your job. He spoke about implementing a checklist in operating rooms across the country. The checklist, with items such as how much blood loss do we think there will be and do we have enough blood, saved lives - including patients in his own operating room, he said.
Not everyone is open to using a checklist, he added. Roughly 20% of those using his surgery checklist hated it. However, about 95% of surgeons that used a checklist said they want a checklist in the hands of any surgeon who was going to perform surgery on them.