Clinician Checklists

Many physicians use checklists for surgeries, central line insertions, and other processes, leading to improvements in the quality and safety of medical care. Checklists like these can also help in diagnosis, helping clinicians in their cognitive decision making process.

Process checklists address common cognitive challenges that contribute to diagnostic error.

Content checklists explore the most common diagnoses for any given symptom.

The checklists are provided for educational purposes only, and should not be construed as medical advice. Publication does not indicate SIDM endorsement.

Process Checklists

Take 2 - Think, Do
Clinical Excellence Commission
The Take 2 – Think, Do framework supports accurate diagnostic decision-making in complex clinical environments.

General Checklist
Mark Graber, et al.
Work though the high risk situations for diagnostic error to ensure accuracy in your next diagnosis.

Diagnostic Decision Making: Time to Take Two Steps Back
William Follansbee, et al.
The key to making accurate and efficient diagnostic decisions is to systematically ask yourself, and your patient, good questions. Find guidelines to asking those questions in this checklist.

Red Team/Blue Team Challenge
Clinical Excellence Commission
The Red Team / Blue Team Challenge aims to test the hierarchical model and provides tools for team members to safely question and challenge the diagnostic decision making process within the team environment.

Diagnosis and Error Checklist
Timothy Krohe
Learn how to assess your confidence and check for cognitive bias with this general checklist to reduce diagnostic error.

Ten Commandments to Reduce Cognitive Errors
Leo Leonidas
Remember key points in reducing cognitive errors with this process checklist.

The SAFER Checklist
Robert Trowbridge
The SAFER checklist helps clinicians work toward an accurate diagnosis and reflect on the process, ensuring for adequate reassessment.

The THINK Checklist
Lara Kothari
The THINK checklist helps users overcome cognitive bias, walking through steps to open patient communication and explore an alternative diagnosis.

VITAMIN CC&D Checklist
Attribution Unknown
Use the VITAMIN CC&D checklist to open your mind to all possible diagnoses and improve clinical reasoning.

Content Checklists

These checklists help bring to mind the most common diagnoses for any given symptom. The set of specific checklists developed by Dr. John Ely were based on symptoms commonly seen in the practice of family medicine.

Symptom Specific Diagnostic Checklists
John Ely
The Symptom Specific Diagnostic Checklist is compiled by Dr. John Ely with funding from the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM). The goal of the checklist application is to prompt physicians to consider a broad differential diagnosis for diagnostically challenging patients in primary care and to help resist the most common cause of missing a diagnosis: the physician's failure to consider it.

Checklist References

Gawande A. The Checklist Manifesto - How to Get Things Right. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books; Henry Holt and Company, LLC; 2009.
Pronovost P, Needham D, Berenholz S, Sinopoli D, Chu H, Cosgrove S, et al.- An intervention to decrease catheter-related bloodstream infections in the ICU. N Engl J Med. 2006;355:2725-32.
Boat AC, Spaeth JP. Handoff -checklists improve the reliability of patient handoffs in the operating room and postanesthesia care unit. Paediatr Anaesth. 2013;23:647-54.
Haynes AB, Weiser TG, Berry WR, Lipsitz SR, Breizat AHS, et al.- A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population. N Engl J Med. 2010;360:491-9.
Bordage G.- Why did I miss the diagnosis? Some cognitive explanations and educational implications. Acad Med. 1999;74(10 Suppl):S138-43.
Graber M, Sorensen A, Biswas J, Modi V, Wackett A, Johnson S, et al.- Developing checklists to prevent diagnostic error in Emergency Room settings. Diagnosis. 2014;1(3):223-31.
Ely JW, Graber ML, Croskerry P.- Checklists to reduce diagnostic errors. Academic Medicine. 2011;Mar;86(3):307-13.

Diagnostic Error Top Ten Checklist

The Improving Diagnosis in Medicine change package, developed in collaboration with the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN), provides clinical teams with a top ten checklist for diagnostic error.

Learn More

Clinician Checklists

Diagnostic Error Top Ten Checklist

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