Checklists

On Friday, I met my daughter Kacey for lunch at Chipotle’s. As we were standing in line, looking at the menu I noticed the manager filling a large order to be picked up. As he put each item in the box, he checked off the item on the order. Very simple, but Kacey and I talked about how good that would be if all businesses would do that. How often have you gotten a take-out order only to get home and find something was missing.

This morning I picked up the March 2008 issue of Fast Company. I’m becoming a fan of Dan and Chip Heath–authors of Made to Stick. Each month they write a column and this month’s column was called “The heroic Checklist: Why you should learn to love checking boxes.” Here’s the story they tell:

The holy grail of checklists may be the one created by Dr. Peter Pronovost of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Intensive-care units (ICUs) often use intravenous lines to deliver medication, and these lines can become infected, causing nasty health complications. Pronovost, frustrated by these preventable events, compiled a five-step checklist.

The checklist contained straightforward advice: Doctors should wash their hands before inserting an IV, a patient’s skin should be cleaned with antiseptic at the point of insertion, and so forth. There was no new science and nothing controversial–only the results were surprising. When Michigan ICUs put the checklist into practice over a period of 18 months, line infections were virtually eliminated, saving the hospitals an estimated $175 million, because they no longer had to treat the associated complications. Oh, and it saved about 1,500 lives. (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/123/heroic-checklist.html)

Isn’t that good?