Business Insight Zone

Imagine my pleasure to discover that Dr. Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins has been awarded one of the 2008 MacArthur “genius” grants.

Back in February, I talked about Pronovost’s work in connection with Atul Gawande’s great New Yorker article about it:

Make a list of “crucial basics” and check it twice.

. . . Dr. Peter Pronovost, the subject of the article, has made a stir in the world of intensive-care medicine with his work introducing systematic checklists to monitor ICU procedures.

The concept is simple: for many medical procedures, the bulk of problems can be avoided and the bulk of benefits gained by hewing closely to “best practices” that are well-known within the medical profession. In many cases, these practices aren’t complicated; they include things like making sure that all doctors and nurses wash their hands thoroughly right before a procedure, or covering a patient’s entire body with antiseptic drapes when inserting a stent.

Simple as these individual steps may be, remembering them all is tough to do amid the hurly-burly of an emergency room or an ICU. So Pronovost, an M.D./Ph.D. with lots of smarts and lots of energy, has worked on setting up procedures for using checklists that take care of the remembering for you. A nurse is responsible for ensuring that medical staff adhere to every step of the checklist in every case.

Later, I discussed Pronovost again when his checklist methods were freed from needless bureaucratic restrictions.

Given the notoreity (and, not incidentally, the money) that comes with the MacArthur fellowship, I’ll be fascinated to see how Pronovost builds on the work he’s already done. His methods promise to save a large number of lives at a ridiculously low cost.

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(Image from Pronovost’s profile at the MacArthur Foundation site.)

Category: Innovation & Entrepreneurship