How to create better checklists

https://www.LeadersGetResults.com Learn how to create better checklists from the experts who've trained over 250 healthcare leadership teams. If you want to produce outstanding results as a leader, designing, implementing, and using checklists are mission-critical skills. The problem is that successful checklist implementations are never simple, and most leaders struggle with getting staff to use checklists in a way that gets the results promised. This video explains 7.5 tactics that I have learned in helping over 200 healthcare organizations create and implement checklists. These tips will help you lead the design, implementation, and use of your checklists more effectively to achieve lasting results. 1. Ensure it is user-built and maintained. Let the expert caregivers in your unit create and implement the customized checklist that works best for them. (The WHO checklist even encourages this.) Give your staff the tools and the guidance, but then get out of the way and let them build the checklist they will ultimately use. Yes, this takes longer and the process will be messier. But in the end, you will have “built in the buy-in.” 2. Keep it short: Not everything must be on a checklist. Put on the checklist only the critical steps that require crosscheck or conversation between caregivers. 3. Don’t confuse your checklist with an audit tool. It’s more important that the team ensures critical items weren’t missed in real time, not that auditors see a tick in the box a week later. 4. Include speaking parts for the team. Great checklists are a trigger to have a scripted conversation about the impending action or procedure. Just like an actor must keep track of the dialogue to know when to say his lines, speaking parts in a checklist foster mindfulness and engagement. 5. Use standardized and scripted language. Ensure it is crystal clear who is supposed to respond, and what--exactly -- it is they are supposed to say during the scripted conversation. 6. If the checklist involves a physician, the physician should lead it. That’s the way all high-reliability organizations do it; team leaders lead the use of checklists. 7. Avoid time-wasting cookbook medicine. Use a Read & Verify methodology with your checklist. Staff should accomplish routine actions from memory and then use the checklist to quickly verify the critical steps are correct. 7.5. Provide teamwork and communication training to staff that use a checklist. The idea that a technical solution (a checklist) can by itself solve a cultural issue (the willingness to speak up and hold others accountable for performance) is a huge trap. Until your newest and most inexperienced staff can willingly speak up and “stop the line” with your most experienced physician, a checklist will never solve your performance issues. Properly designed and expertly used within a team-based culture of accountability, checklists can help you achieve lasting results. Action Step: Take one checklist you currently use and review it against these 7.5 tips. Going Deeper: Read The Checklist Manifesto https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right-ebook/dp/B0030V0PEW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1529888859&sr=1-1&keywords=checklist+manifesto Get more key leadership insights at https://www.LeadersGetResults.com/blog