This month I am attending on the dialysis floor. As you can imagine it is a high volume experience with a lot of patient turnover. Patients get admitted from six or seven large dialysis units around the area and our group alone has a dozen nephrologists. This leads to communication problems. Coordinating care with the dialysis units, the outpatient nephrologists, the specialists and primary care docs; it can be overwelming.
This checklist actually acts more as a list of important contact numbers for each patient. Gawande, specificaly mentions that improved communication is one of the key ways that checklists improve outcomes.
At the bottom are some basic items that all dialysis patients need and can get missed on a busy service.
It is all contained on a 3×5 card.
Admitting Checklist 4up
The native Pages file (.zip)