The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

The book's title makes it come across like just another self-help/productivity book but the author has some really strong credentials. He's a doctor who has worked with WHO to implement a checklist system now used by hospitals worldwide, that reduced complication/death rates by huge amounts (like 30-50%).

The author uses examples from his own field (medicine) but has also taken the time to interview a guy from Boeing who writes checklists for pilots, a busy restaurant owner and a building manager who is in charge of building skyscrapers (who all use checklists successfully).

He raises some really strong evidence for using checklists. The reader would have to go away and think about how it can be applied to their own workplace (he never talks about how it could be applied outside of a work environment, but there is probably some value there too!)

The main concepts are simple enough to grasp:

* Write checklists to cover major points, but short enough that they only take a minute to do
* Have the checklists broken down to occur before key trigger points (e.g. one checklist right before surgery incision, one for right before you take the patient out of the operating theatre)
* Test these checklists, and constantly refine them as you go. A checklist that works for one hospital might not work exactly the same for another but that's okay, you can modify them
* If you're in a team-based setting, take a minute before beginning to go around and introduce yourselves, and to raise any concerns/thoughts you may have. This gives nurses the opportunity to voice their thoughts which they might not otherwise feel they have the authority to do.