A review by nessdang
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

5.0

"One essential characteristic of modern life is that we all depend on systems -- on assemblages of people or technologies or both -- and among our most profound difficulties is making them work. In medicine, for instance, if I want my patients to receive the best care possible, not only must I do a good job but a whole collection of diverse components have to somehow mesh together effectively. Health care is like a car in that way, points out Donald Berwick, president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston and one of our deepest thinkers about systems in medicine. In both cases, having great components is not enough.
We're obsessed in medicine with having great components -- the best drugs, the best devices, the best specialists -- but pay little attention to how to make them fit together well. Berwick notes how wrongheaded this approach is. 'Anyone who understands systems will know immediately that optimizing parts is not a good route to system excellence,' he says. He gives the example of a famous thought experiment of trying to build the world's greatest car by assembling the world's greatest car parts. We connect the engine of a Ferrari, the brakes of a Porsche, the suspension of a BMW, the body of a Volvo. 'What we get, of course, is nothing close to a great car; we get a pile of very expensive junk.'
Nonetheless, in medicine that's exactly what we have done."