This is a study which supports the premise of a new, best-selling book by Atul Gawande, M.D., Harvard professor and New Yorker Magazine writer.

The book Gawande wrote is The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right. The title may puzzle readers. You mean they don’t have checklists like pilots before they take off?

No, “they” do not. Hospitals are not airlines. Doctors are not pilots. Patients are not planes. Still, there may be something to be learned from that approach, Gawande wrote.

Now that the concept of checklists has been introduced, studies can prove or disprove their value and identify limitations, if any.

Here is one of the first studies which examines how checklists can be used for a variety of diagnoses.

Researchers concluded the potential for checklists, or “care bundles,” could lead to a 50% reduction in preventable hospital deaths.

A 50% reduction would be a stunning achievement. The test of checklists will not come with the early adopters, the ones who are eager to try something promising first. The test of checklists will come when these are generally accepted practice—assuming that happens.

BBC

“Checklists that spell out exactly how to care for patients with common conditions have dramatically reduced hospital deaths, say doctors.

“The British Medical Journal reported a 15% fall in the number of people who had died at one north London hospital trust using so-called care bundles.

“These are checklists covering dozens of conditions including strokes, heart failure and MRSA infections.

“The researchers said death rates could be “halved” using the system.”

Source: BBC, April 1, 2010

Citation: British Medical Journal, 2010;340:c1234, published April 1, 2010