A Checkup for Your Checklist: A 9-Point Assessment Tool from LifeWings to Improve the Design and Effectiveness of Your Checklist

The most important phrase on the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist is located on the bottom of the page: “This checklist is not intended to be comprehensive. Additions and modifications to fit local practice are encouraged.” Administrators ignore this piece of advice at their peril. Checklists created by other people at other facilities will rarely work well in your organization. There’s no emotional investment by your staff in making a checklist created elsewhere work, and certainly no pride of authorship. Effective checklists borrow heavily from the Kaizen methodology of the Toyota manufacturing process. In Kaizen, the people who actually do the work are best suited and most responsible for creating the standard for how the work gets done.  

To put Kaizen to work for you, assemble a small team together with representatives from each work group that will participate in using the checklist. Allow them the freedom to customize the tool in a way that makes sense for them and that aids their workflow. As an administrator, give them the resources and support they need to be successful, but then get out of their way and don’t do their customizing work for them. Do you want to avoid the “not made here” syndrome and all the problems that syndrome brings? Ensure your checklist is built and implemented by your staff.