The development and implementation of checklists in obstetrics.

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine; Peter S. Bernstein; Andrew Combs; Laurence E. Shields; Steven L. Clark; Catherine S. Eppes; SMFM Patient Safety and Quality Committee

Commentary

The development and implementation of checklists in obstetrics.

September 27, 2017

Medicine S for M-F, Bernstein PS, Combs A, et al. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2017;217(2):B2-B6.

View more articles from the same authors.

Checklists are considered a key tool for improving communication and safety in risky, stressful environments. This commentary discusses different types of checklists, design elements to consider when developing a checklist, and strategies to implement checklists.

PubMed citation

Free full text

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

ACOG Committee Opinion #531: improving medication safety.

September 19, 2012

ACOG Committee Opinion #681: disclosure and discussion of adverse events.

January 30, 2005

ACOG Committee Opinion #621: patient safety and health information technology.

April 1, 2015

ACOG Committee Opinion No. 447: patient safety in obstetrics and gynecology.

December 16, 2009

ACOG Committee Opinion #546: tracking and reminder systems.

December 12, 2012

ACOG Committee Opinion #590: preparing for clinical emergencies in obstetrics and gynecology.

April 30, 2014

Principles of pediatric patient safety: reducing harm due to medical care.

June 15, 2011

The development and implementation of cognitive aids for critical events in pediatric anesthesia: the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Critical Events Checklists.

March 15, 2017

Use of maternal early warning trigger tool reduces maternal morbidity.

April 6, 2016

Patient safety in the pediatric emergency care setting.

January 2, 2008

Medication errors in pediatric inpatients: prevalence and results of a prevention program.

September 17, 2008

Characteristics of medication errors and adverse drug events in hospitals participating in the California Pediatric Patient Safety Initiative.

November 12, 2008

Transitions of Care Consensus Policy Statement American College of Physicians-Society of General Internal Medicine-Society of Hospital Medicine-American Geriatrics Society-American College of Emergency Physicians-Society of Academic Emergency Medicine.

April 22, 2009

American College of Endocrinology and American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists position statement on patient safety and medical system errors in diabetes and endocrinology.

December 7, 2005

Principles for Patient and Family Partnership in Care: An American College of Physicians Position Paper.

December 5, 2018

Are you using checklists? Check!

August 4, 2010

Errors in administration of parenteral drugs in intensive care units: multinational prospective study.

March 25, 2009

Sleep deprivation: implications for obstetric practice in the United States.

August 26, 2009

Disclosure of medical errors: the right thing to do.

September 1, 2010

Patient safety in intensive care: results from the multinational Sentinel Events Evaluation (SEE) study.

August 16, 2006

The Armstrong Institute: an academic institute for patient safety and quality improvement, research, training, and practice.

June 10, 2015

Case studies of patient safety research classics to build research capacity in low- and middle-income countries.

December 11, 2013

Pediatric medication safety in the emergency department.

March 14, 2018

Pediatric Readiness in the Emergency Department.

November 1, 2018

Preventing patient harm via adverse event review: An APSA survey regarding the role of morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference.

October 23, 2019

Standardized Competencies for Parenteral Nutrition Administration: the ASPEN Model.

June 20, 2018

Clinical perspective: creating an effective practice peer review process—a primer.

March 29, 2017

Usability and feasibility of consumer-facing technology to reduce unsafe medication use by older adults.

May 22, 2019

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: Surgical safety checklists for cesarean delivery.

September 22, 2021

Ottawa Hospital Patient Safety Study: incidence and timing of adverse events in patients admitted to a Canadian teaching hospital.

March 6, 2005

Systematic review: effects of resident work hours on patient safety.

September 28, 2005

Effects of work hour reduction on residents' lives: a systematic review.

September 28, 2005

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: a critique of postpartum readmission rate as a quality metric.

May 18, 2022

Is communication improved with the implementation of an obstetrical version of the World Health Organization safe surgery checklist?

November 9, 2016

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: cognitive bias and medical error in obstetrics-challenges and opportunities.

August 10, 2022

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: telemedicine in obstetrics-quality and safety considerations.

February 1, 2023

Handoffs in the era of duty hours reform: a focused review and strategy to address changes in the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Common Program Requirements.

March 14, 2012

Defining patient safety in hospice: principles to guide measurement and public reporting.

June 27, 2012

Speaking up about safety concerns: multi-setting qualitative study of patients' views and experiences.

December 15, 2010

July 27, 2016

Medical errors in orthopaedics. Results of an AAOS member survey.

March 18, 2009

Emergency department monitor alarms rarely change clinical management: an observational study.

September 16, 2020

Effect of reducing interns' weekly work hours on sleep and attentional failures.

March 27, 2005

Medication errors in family practice, in hospitals and after discharge from the hospital: an ethical analysis.

April 21, 2005

Direct oral anticoagulants: a review of common medication errors.

November 21, 2018

Wrong-site craniotomy: analysis of 35 cases and systems for prevention.

September 15, 2010

Medication sharing, storage, and disposal practices for opioid medications among US adults.

June 22, 2016

The use of simulation in emergency medicine: a research agenda.

March 7, 2007

Improved outcomes, fewer cesarean deliveries, and reduced litigation: results of a new paradigm in patient safety.

May 28, 2008

In situ simulated cardiac arrest exercises to detect system vulnerabilities.

June 10, 2015

Patient safety in healthcare preregistration educational curricula: multiple case study-based investigations of eight medicine, nursing, pharmacy and physiotherapy university courses.

June 19, 2013

Healing our own: a randomized trial to assess benefits of peer support.

February 2, 2022

A call for safety: anticipating and mitigating risk across an obstetrics and gynecology service line.

June 21, 2023

Comparing rates of adverse events detected in incident reporting and the Global Trigger Tool: a systematic review.

August 16, 2023

Systems-level factors affecting registered nurses during care of women in labor experiencing clinical deterioration.

April 20, 2022

Prevention of failure to rescue in obstetric patients: a realist review.

November 10, 2021

New U.S. health crisis looms as patients without COVID-19 delay care.

July 29, 2020

Impact of a pharmacist-facilitated hospital discharge program: a quasi-experimental study.

December 2, 2009

A systematic approach to the identification and classification of near-miss events on labor and delivery in a large, national health care system.

November 14, 2012

Applying modern error theory to the problem of missed injuries in trauma.

April 2, 2008

Electronic health records in ambulatory care- a national survey of physicians.

June 25, 2008

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Venous Thromboembolism.

December 7, 2016

Prevention of wrong-site tooth extraction: clinical guidelines.

October 17, 2007

Association of a web-based handoff tool with rates of medical errors.

August 17, 2016

Society of Interventional Radiology IR Pre-Procedure Patient Safety Checklist by the Safety and Health Committee.

June 15, 2016

Impact of electronic prescribing in a hospital setting: a process-focused evaluation.

August 27, 2008

A standardized handoff simulation promotes recovery from auditory distractions in resident physicians.

July 11, 2018

Communication and shared understanding between parents and resident-physicians at night.

July 13, 2016

Patient safety in medical imaging: a joint paper of the European Society of Radiology (ESR) and the European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS).

May 8, 2019

Medicare's policy not to pay for treating hospital-acquired conditions: the impact.

September 30, 2009

Adverse drug event rates in six community hospitals and the potential impact of computerized physician order entry for prevention.

November 25, 2009

Equipped: overcoming barriers to change to improve quality of care (theories of change).

March 18, 2015

A multidisciplinary teamwork training program: The Triad for Optimal Patient Safety (TOPS) experience.

October 15, 2008

Patient safety research: an overview of the global evidence.

March 17, 2010

Global priorities for patient safety research.

June 3, 2009

Automated identification of postoperative complications within an electronic medical record using natural language processing.

August 31, 2011

Improving handoffs in the emergency department.

October 28, 2009

Impact of vendor computerized physician order entry in community hospitals.

February 22, 2012

A mixed method study of the merits of e-prescribing drug alerts in primary care.

April 30, 2008

Medical error reduction and tort reform through private contractually-based quality medicine societies.

March 17, 2010

Prospective error recording in surgery: an analysis of 1108 elective neurosurgical cases.

August 15, 2007

Can we make postoperative patient handovers safer? A systematic review of the literature.

May 30, 2012

Use of a safety climate questionnaire in UK health care: factor structure, reliability and usability.

November 22, 2006

The WHO patient safety curriculum guide for medical schools.

January 12, 2011

A qualitative content analysis of retained surgical items: learning from root cause analysis investigations.

May 27, 2020

The costs of adverse drug events in community hospitals.

March 7, 2012

Threats to safety during sedation outside of the operating room and the death of Michael Jackson.

April 20, 2016

An anesthesiology department leads culture change at a hospital system level to improve quality and patient safety.

February 23, 2011

Managing competing organizational priorities in clinical handover across organizational boundaries.

January 21, 2015

Developing a reliable and valid patient measure of safety in hospitals (PMOS): a validation study.

June 25, 2014

Resident supervision and patient safety: do different levels of resident supervision affect the rate of morbidity and mortality cases?

August 26, 2015

What causes prescribing errors in children? Scoping review.

August 28, 2019

Intensive care unit readmissions in U.S. hospitals: patient characteristics, risk factors, and outcomes.

October 12, 2011

Optimal preoperative assessment of the geriatric surgical patient: a best practices guideline from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program and the American Geriatrics Society.

October 10, 2012

Standardized competencies for parenteral nutrition prescribing: The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition Model.

July 8, 2015

Disclosure and reporting of surgical complications: a double-edged sword?

August 18, 2010

Improving peripherally inserted central catheter appropriateness and reducing device-related complications: a quasiexperimental study in 52 Michigan hospitals.

April 14, 2021

Formalizing the hidden curriculum of performance enhancing errors.

March 22, 2023

Thirty-day outcomes support implementation of a surgical safety checklist.

January 9, 2013

Antimicrobial prescription errors in hospitalized children: role of antimicrobial stewardship program in detection and intervention.

April 1, 2009

Related Resources

A qualitative study of systems-level factors that affect rural obstetric nurses' work during clinical emergencies.

February 21, 2024

Investigators find hospital error caused mother’s death in Brooklyn.

January 24, 2024

Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health: Consensus Bundle on Sepsis in Obstetric Care.

October 11, 2023

Diagnosing fast and slow: cognitive bias in obstetrics.

September 27, 2023

Hiding in plain sight: inconvenient facts for patient safety in non-24/7 theatre on-site staffed obstetric units.

September 6, 2023

When the lights go down in the delivery room: lessons from a ransomware attack.

September 6, 2023

A call for safety: anticipating and mitigating risk across an obstetrics and gynecology service line.

June 21, 2023

The time is now: addressing implicit bias in obstetrics and gynecology education.

May 17, 2023

Addressing Medical Gaslighting to Improve Maternal Health—Together.

March 29, 2023

Maternal and Infant Health Inequality: New Evidence from Linked Administrative Data.

February 22, 2023

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: telemedicine in obstetrics-quality and safety considerations.

February 1, 2023

Organisational failure: rethinking whistleblowing for tomorrow's doctors.

September 7, 2022

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: cognitive bias and medical error in obstetrics-challenges and opportunities.

August 10, 2022

The Uneven Burden of Maternal Mortality in the U.S.

August 10, 2022

Proceed with reasonable care: when legal principles inform training to prevent harm during the childbirth.

February 9, 2022

WebM&M Cases

Hidden Danger! Insidious Postpartum Bleeding After Emergency Cesarean Delivery.

November 30, 2021

Adaptation and implementation of the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist around the world.

November 3, 2021

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: Surgical safety checklists for cesarean delivery.

September 22, 2021

Obstetric iatrogenesis in the United States: the spectrum of unintentional harm, disrespect, violence, and abuse.

September 8, 2021

Racial/ethnic inequities in pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality.

March 10, 2021

First do no harm: practitioners' ability to 'diagnose' system weaknesses and improve safety is a critical initial step in improving care quality.

March 3, 2021

Racial disparities in maternal mortality.

January 20, 2021

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: a maternal transport briefing form and checklist.

December 23, 2020

Investigation into Detection of Retained Vaginal Swabs and Tampons Following Childbirth.

January 22, 2020

The compliance with a patient safety bundle for management of placenta accreta spectrum.

October 16, 2019

Burnout and Resilience and Quality and Safety Programs in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

August 21, 2019

Delivering high reliability in maternity care: in situ simulation as a source of organisational resilience.

July 10, 2019

Obstetric practice guidelines: labor's love lost?

June 5, 2019

Patient Safety in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

May 29, 2019

In-situ interprofessional perinatal drills: the impact of a structured debrief on maximizing training while sensing patient safety threats.

May 22, 2019

See More About The Topic

Labor and Delivery

Health Care Providers

Obstetrics

Discontinuities, Gaps, and Hand-Off Problems

Epidemiology of Errors and Adverse Events

The development and implementation of checklists in obstetrics.

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

The development and implementation of checklists in obstetrics.

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site