CHECKLIST MANIFESTO How to Get Things Right

Surgeon, NEW YORKER staff writer, and Harvard professor Atul Gawande conducted a controversial global study on the use of the checklist in various professional functions. His intent was to measure the effectiveness of using checklists to confirm and make consistent the mandatory steps required in routine tasks. The ultimate goal of his study was to identify effective methods for avoiding errors that could result in catastrophic losses in such venues as operating rooms, cockpits, Wall Street firms, and others. John Bedford Lloyd meticulously narrates Gawande’s results on the use of checklists: staggering reductions in infections, deaths, and other negative outcomes. In a documentary-style delivery, Lloyd methodically describes how various companies and their managers are now incorporating checklists into their daily operations, despite some organizational resistance. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2010]