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Using Checklists? Get ‘Smart’!
Narinder Kapur1, Veronica Bradley2
1
Visiting Professor of Neuropsychology
Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University
College London
[email protected]
2
Consultant Neuropsychologist, Cognitive Neurology Ltd, Sussex
Checklists in healthcare settings can save lives, but using them in routine clinical practice
can be a hassle. Incorporating checklists into a simple, user-friendly, ‘Smart Paper’ format
makes this much easier.
Forgetting to think of a possible diagnosis or forgetting to carry out a certain procedure is
every physician’s nightmare, especially if it results in patient harm or death. This is evident
in the regular occurrence in the media of cases where symptoms were diagnostic but
seemed at the time benign or puzzling to a doctor, who simply forgot to think about a key
aetiology. The results may be disastrous for the patient (death as worst case scenario) and
may also be disastrous for the career of the doctor, especially if he finds himself called
before his regulatory body.
Checklists in medicine have been shown to be a good idea since they help prevent cognitive
lapses such as forgetting to carry out certain procedures.1-5 However, they have not been as
widely adopted as they should be for a number of reasons - for example, there is additional
expenditure of time and cognitive load involved on top of existing procedures, and staff may
be too rushed to make the effort to use a checklist. 6-8
For the past 20 years, my colleagues and I have been using a ‘Smart Paper’ format to
incorporate checklists in our own area of clinical practice, Neuropsychology. Both junior and
senior staff have found this format to be user-friendly, requiring minimal effort to use. The
Smart Paper takes the place of prepared lined paper, and simply has relevant checklists
and guidelines along the edge of the paper. The template has been prepared in Microsoft
Word, and the size of individual boxes can be varied. Background colour within boxes can
also be varied, and could be used for different domains of the clinical interaction. The text
content may refer to questions that should be asked, how best answers may be interpreted,
key investigations to carry out, how best the results of investigations should be interpreted,
differential diagnoses, and ranges of treatment interventions.
An important benefit of a Smart Paper format is that it obviates one of the time-consuming
features of checklists - finding and using another piece of documentation, and referring to
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that documentation at the same time as taking notes during a clinical interaction with the
patient. The clinician can glance at the items needing to be checked at the same time as
taking notes, and will more readily be able to refer to key items if they are on the same
piece of paper.
While the evidence on which checklists are based must of course be sound, checklists
themselves are no substitute for good clinical judgment, and the context in which a clinical
decision is made, needs of the particular patient, etc. must also be kept to the fore.
In what situations would Smart Paper be useful?
Smart Paper formats could be useful in the following situations –

Where there is a common symptom or set of symptoms that may have a variety of
causes and treatments – e.g. headache, sudden collapse, chest pain, stomach pain. An
example is provided in Figure 1 of a ‘sudden collapse’ Smart Paper.

Surgical checklist prior to surgery – as is indicated in Figure 2, it is easy to have the key
items in the WHO surgical checklist inserted into boxes that can be readily scanned. If
all staff who are taking notes in theatre use this variant of the Smart Paper as a matter
of routine, the likelihood of forgetting to follow procedures is reduced.

Inpatient admission of a patient where a whole series of questions have to be asked and
basic examinations and investigations carried out.

At discharge, especially of those patients with complex needs and treatments, Smart
Papers may come in useful as reminders of things to tell the patient, items to be given to
the patient – such as medicines, dressings or information leaflets – actions to be carried
out, etc.

Problematical diagnostic assessments, such as dementia screening for conditions such
as Alzheimer’s Disease, where in the very early stages Alzheimer’s Disease may overlap
with benign forgetfulness and where timely diagnosis may be important in terms of
therapeutic intervention.

Where Care Bundles are used to ensure that clinical guidelines are followed.
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Depending on the setting, Smart Papers may complement or substitute for other formats
that are used.

Smart Papers could also be of value as a training tool for junior staff and trainees, and
also those who have just joined a Department and may not be familiar with the particular
routines that are followed by that Department.
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
Smart Papers can also be valuable for senior staff who may find themselves rushed,
under stress, tired, overloaded, etc. One of the cognitive premises on which the Smart
Papers are based is that clinicians may make errors not because they lack relevant
knowledge, but because for one reason or another they do not access that knowledge at
the right time and in the right place for reasons such as those just outlined – their
internal attentional systems may fail because they have been under too much pressure,
or, in the case of senior staff, attentional control may simply be failing due to the aging
process!

As well as being used at the time of the consultation, which is its most common use, we
find that the Smart Paper is also used in two other ways – prior to seeing a patient if you
know the clinical history and wish to check out guidelines as to what to ask in the
interview, which tests to consider ordering, etc; and after having seen a patient, if the
Smart Paper was not used during the consultation, to help in deciding a diagnosis, tests
to order, treatment to give, etc.
What are the advantages over just having a notepad together with a checklist?

Since the checklist/guidance, etc is on the same paper that one actually writes on,
one cannot forget or omit to have the checklist/guidance to hand.

Having to find space for another A4 sheet of paper, and making reference to that,
requires more time and more cognitive effort than just looking at one A4 sheet with
key points at the edge.
How would Smart Paper be used?
Smart Papers can be used in several ways –

As noted above, they can serve as a way of preparing for a clinical interaction with a
patient if aspects of the clinical history are known, and the clinician wishes to remind
himself/herself of the key questions to ask, key investigations to carry out, etc. Thus, the
Smart Paper could form a mini-review that would obviate the need to consult a textbook
or carry out an online search.
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
More frequently, they will be used in the actual clinical interaction – instead of using
ordinary lined paper, the clinician can avail him or herself of the Smart Paper where
he/she can be reminded of items and investigations. The clinician is free to take notes
initially without any reference to items in the boxes, but he/she can then check
throughout the interview and at the end of the consultation if all relevant items have
been covered.

In some instances, such as a Surgical Checklist Smart Paper, the relevant boxes would
be ticked off to indicate that the items in question have been properly addressed.

Where the information written on Smart Paper has to be transferred to a patient’s notes,
and where it may be cumbersome to insert an A4 sheet of paper, it is possible to
envisage the central ruled section being on purpose-built ‘peel off’ paper, which could
then be stuck onto a regular page in the patient’s notes.
If, as could be easily envisaged, one had Smart Paper pads for a WHO surgical checklist,
similar to writing pads marketed by pharmaceutical companies, and these were used
routinely by theatre staff for making notes, then indirect and repeated exposure to the
checklist would result in implicit learning of items in the checklist, just as repeated exposure
does in advertising, and this should improve compliance in the use of a checklist.
One can envisage scenarios where an electronic version of a Smart Paper could be
developed, and differing versions of a Smart Paper automatically brought up on screen, with
electronic hand-written entry on the screen.
We are making the Smart Paper template, as well as the two sample Smart Papers listed in
this
article,
available
for
clinicians
to
use
and
to
adapt
free
of
charge
(www.londonmemoryclinic.com).
Figures 1 & 2 here
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References
1
Hales B, Pronovost P. The checklist – a tool for error management and performance
improvement. Journal of Critical Care 2006; 21: 231-5.
2
Gawande A. The checklist. The New Yorker December 10, 2007.
3
Gawande A. The Checklist Manifesto. New York: Holt, Henry & Co, 2009.
4
Haynes A, Weiser T, Berry W. et al. A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity
and mortality in a global population. New England Journal of Medicine 2009; 360:
491-9.
5
Ely J, Graber M, Croskerry P. Checklists to reduce diagnostic errors. Academic
Medicine 2011; 86: 307-13.
6
Vats A, Vincent C, Nagpal K. et al. Practical challenges of introducing WHO surgical
checklist: UK pilot experience. BMJ 2010; 340: b5433.
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Shillito J, Arfanis K, Smith A. Checking in healthcare safety: theoretical basis and
practical application. International Journal of Health Care and Quality Assurance
2010; 23: 699-707.
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Thomassen O, Espeland A, Softeland E et al. Implementation of checklists in
healthcare; learning from high-reliability organizations. Journal of Trauma,
Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine 2011; 19: 53.
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Robb B, Jarman B, Suntharalingam G et al. Using care bundles to reduce in-hospital
mortality: quantitative survey. BMJ 2010; 340: 861-3.
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