The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande
The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande
28 Rating(s)
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The Checklist Manifesto
How to Get Things Right

Author: Atul Gawande

Narrator: John Bedford Lloyd

Unabridged: 6 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/22/2009


Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist

We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.

In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from homeland security to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.

An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

About Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande is the author of several bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award; Better; The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two National Magazine Awards. In his work in public health, he is Founder and Chair of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He is also chair of Haven, where he was CEO from 2018-2020. He and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter on July 13, 2012

We all have those books that sit on a nightstand, half-finished for weeks, right? Months? Maybe a year? *cough* Well, at some point you have to look at them and say, "I may not be finishing that one." Or, alternatively, you can look at it and say, "Man, fuck this book." It's not like there was anything......more

Goodreads review by Maggie on October 11, 2020

A splendid little thing by a surgeon who extrapolates general problem-solving solutions from a variety of specific, technical examples.......more

Goodreads review by LG on May 02, 2011

Before starting, I read quite a few reviews that described it as an extended magazine entry. And I went in skeptical; I was curious how much one could say about checklists. I see lists as a great way to get things done. As long as they are simple and directed, they can focus my attention and keep me......more

Goodreads review by Matt on December 08, 2010

My having read - and enjoyed - a 200-page book about using checklists suggests that I'm a cocktail party nightmare, but I found this to be very much a worthy read. At the heart of it, this is really a book about management and efficiency. It's got a lot more "manifesto" in it than "how-to" though, w......more

Goodreads review by Shane on November 02, 2012

How is this book a bestseller? It's not what I'd been hoping for. I expected a grand revelation in this book about a new way to approach making and using checklists to accomplish more, faster. What I got was a bunch of anecdotes about people using checklists successfully, many of them having already......more


Quotes

“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.” —AudioFile

“Is it really possible that a low-tech-actually no-tech-simple list can change and influence outcomes in our high-tech, super-complex world? The answer is a resounding YES! And in his latest book, The Checklist Manifesto, straightforwardly narrated by John Bedford Lloyd, Atul Gawande-one of those wonderfully multitalented men who is a surgeon, New Yorker staff writer and MacArthur Fellow-explains why and how a "stupid little list" can help even the most highly skilled and trained avoid failure and achieve consistent success.” —BookPage, Audio of the Month

“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.” —AudioFile