As recently as 2001, a simple procedure was added to the protocol of a top notch hospital in the mid-atlantic. A year later, this simple procedure was seen to have been enormously effective.

They calculated that, in this one hospital, the checklist had prevented forty-three infections and eight deaths, and saved two million dollars in costs.

Yup, adding a checklist.

In a stellar piece of research and storytelling, Atul Gawande tells the ongoing story of critical-care specialist Peter Pronovost at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Included and completely in context is an amazing story of mammalian diving reflex as embodied in a young Austrian girl, the challenges involved in supporting people in modern Intensive Care Units, and a neat anecdote about how the U.S. military and aviation as a discipline discovered the need for checklists.