What is the history and evolution of assessment and auditing checklists in medical literature, as reported in PubMed, Hindawi, and international journals?

From the Guidelines

History and Evolution in Assessment and Auditing of Checklists

The use of checklists in intensive care units has evolved significantly, with a scoping review highlighting their widespread use and positive clinical and process of care outcomes 1. The history of checklists dates back to the 1930s in aviation, where they were used to manage complex aircraft operations 1. In healthcare, checklists were adopted more systematically in the late 20th century, with the landmark 2001 Institute of Medicine report "Crossing the Quality Chasm" highlighting preventable medical errors and catalyzing interest in structured approaches to patient safety 1. A study by Dr. Peter Pronovost in 2006 demonstrated that a simple five-point checklist for central line insertion reduced infection rates by 66%, establishing checklists as evidence-based safety tools 1. The World Health Organization's Surgical Safety Checklist, developed in 2008, further validated this approach by showing significant reductions in surgical complications and mortality across diverse global settings 1.

• Key findings from a scoping review of checklists in intensive care units include:
  • Checklists are commonly used in intensive care units and appear in many clinical guidelines 1
  • Delirium screening checklists and rounding checklists are well implemented and validated in the literature 1
  • Clinical and process of care outcomes associated with checklist use are predominantly positive 1
• The evolution of checklists continues with emerging applications in telemedicine, artificial intelligence-assisted decision support, and patient-centered care coordination 1.
• Despite their proven benefits, challenges remain in checklist adoption, including resistance to standardization, workflow disruptions, and maintaining long-term compliance 1.
• Future research on checklists in intensive care units should focus on establishing clinical guidelines for checklist types and processes for ongoing modification and improvements using post-intervention data 1.

From the Research

History and Evolution of Checklists

• The use of checklists in healthcare has been increasingly popular, with surgical safety checklists being introduced into thousands of operating rooms across 6 continents since 2008 2.
• The concept of using checklists to improve patient safety and quality of care has been around for several decades, with studies dating back to 2004 showing the effectiveness of checklists in reducing catheter-related bloodstream infections 3.
• The development and implementation of checklists in healthcare have been influenced by high-reliability organizations, which have used checklists for nearly a century to improve safety and reduce errors 4.
• In recent years, there has been a growing interest in developing evidence-based quality assessment checklists for primary health care settings, using standardized patients to test and validate the checklists 5.
• The use of checklists has been shown to be effective in reducing the rate of catheter-associated bloodstream infections in surgical intensive care units, with one study showing a 68% reduction in CLABSIs after implementation of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Central Line Bundle 6.

References

2 The Surgical clinics of North America, 2021 3 Critical care medicine, 2004 4 Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine, 2011 5 Annals of palliative medicine, 2021 6 American journal of surgery, 2014