The geeks helped out, too!

And here is the computer screen referred to below, which acts in parallel with the time-out checklist to help insure compliance with the protocol. It was specially designed by our able IS team when they realized it would be helpful to this quality improvement effort. John Halamka, our chief "geekdoctor", wrote about an early version of this back in July; but then his folks worked with the clinician task force to modify and expand the concept to produce the screen you see before you. Things like this constantly remind me of the expertise of our IS folks and their enthusiastic willingness to dive in with other staff and help with clinical applications like this.

(Please ignore the space between the top and bottom halves, which does not exist on the actual computer screens. I couldn't quite put together the two images, but you get the idea. Click on either half to get a close-up view of the checklist items.)