Are you familiar with the work of Atul Gawande (a surgeon) and related work around checklists? [1] I would highly recommend you take a look at those and see if you still feel the same way about checklists. They are not about minimizing physicians' training & expertise. They're about procedural rigor, process standardization, and reducing inevitable human error. They're about shifting mental loads away from "rote" or "routine" tasks which are amenable to checklists and instead over to those complex thought processes that really need the specialized years of training.
I don't think people are trying to suggest doctors are maliciously saying "XYZ error rate is good enough, we don't need to do better", but more that there is some ego at play in the reactionary shunning of checklists, when in fact checklists can be a relatively easy way to produce better outcomes.
> Are you familiar with the work of Atul Gawande (a surgeon) and related work around checklists?
I am now. The author of the research on which this article is based [0] is Marty Makary (MM). Marty claims to have co-developed the checklist which was further popularized by Atul in his book [1]
Marty advocates transparency in healthcare in his book "Unaccountable". He laments existing bureaucracy and his solution is more bureaucracy. I find this review illuminating [2]. The reviewer makes good points, and the replies he gets show how many missed his point.
This is the world of medicine. People get pumped up into believing the entire medical profession is flawed, there's a massive debate about how much money should be paid out, and the world keeps turning. In the middle of this, good doctors can become victims of stress induced by bureaucracy. That's a cost on which you simply cannot put a dollar figure. Patients can end up receiving worse care, and lawyers walk away happy to have drummed up more business.
I wrote more in my second response to brownbat in this thread. Basically, the checklist research hasn't been sufficiently replicated, and checklists do not guarantee focus and awareness. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for increasing people's focus. It's not as simple as brownbat implies. Atul admits this,
"It turns out to be much more complex that just having the checklist in hand." [3]
I don't think people are trying to suggest doctors are maliciously saying "XYZ error rate is good enough, we don't need to do better", but more that there is some ego at play in the reactionary shunning of checklists, when in fact checklists can be a relatively easy way to produce better outcomes.
[1] http://www.nature.com/news/hospital-checklists-are-meant-to-...