Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

Gawande, Atul "It has been years since I read a book so powerful and so thought-provoking ... Gawande is a gorgeous writer and storyteller, and the aims of this book are ambitious." —Malcolm Gladwell The modern world has given us stupendous know-how. Yet avoidable failures continue to plague us in health care, government, the law, the financial industry—in almost every realm of organized activity. And the reason is simple: the volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people—consistently, correctly, safely. We train longer, specialize more, use ever advancing technologies, and still we fail. Atul Gawande makes a compelling argument that we can do better, using the simplest of methods: the lowly checklist. He explains how checklists have made possible some of the most difficult things people do—from flying airplanes to building skyscrapers. He takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a patient who had spen