Why Checklists in Healthcare Are Important

Checklists provide a wealth of positive impacts within healthcare organizations. Whether you are looking to effectively report incidents, prevent falls, or reduce overall risk, it all starts with a list. Here are the top reasons why checklists are so important in healthcare.

What are Checklists in Healthcare?

Checklists in healthcare are defined as lists of actions arranged systematically that allow the user to consistently perform each action, record the completion, and minimize errors. In healthcare, checklists can help employees and staff achieve consistently improved outcomes. 

Benefits of Checklists in Healthcare

As reimbursements continue to become scrutinized and healthcare organizations look to improve value-based care, improved efficiencies and streamlined processes are a must. Checklists in healthcare provide a fantastic foundation for this type of systemic organizational improvement. With strong checklists in healthcare, organizations can: 

1. Promote More Effective Patient Rounding 

Automated checklists for hospitals and other types of care environments promote effective, purposeful, and standardized patient rounding. When healthcare teams make the effort to observe whether systems and processes worked correctly through effective patient rounding in hospitals, they are able to identify the warning signs of potential accidents and events.

2. Improve Quality Monitoring 

Checklists ensure that employees and staff can effectively share data, measure outcomes, and track clinical performance across the entire organization.

3. Prevent Falls

By implementing checklists in healthcare, it's easier for employees to take precautions to prevent falls  -- the No. 1 sentinel event -- from occurring. For example, think about how many patients a nurse sees in just one shift. That's a lot of information to keep track of.

Having a proper checklist helps keep busy staff members on track. In addition, it focuses on providing high-quality care (rather than recalling every item on a mental to-do list.) 

4. Minimize Environment of Care Risks

Using checklists in healthcare can help track if wet floor signs are used and removed promptly, if the emergency exits are free of obstructions, and if the clinical staff is wearing non-slip shoes.

Checklists in hospitals help minimize or eliminate Environment of Care (EOC) risks by monitoring the patient environment for safety and satisfaction.

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