Good checklists, on the other hand are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything--a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps--the ones that even the highly skilled professional using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical.

When [disease] can't be stopped, that's where we become lost.

What about regular professionals, who just want to do what they do as well as they can?

Human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change.

We now have 30 percent, for example, of Medicare patients who are seeing doctors who are rewarded for doing this kind of work, like high blood pressure control. So, the Affordable Care Act has pushed this direction down the road.

This is the reality of intensive care: at any point, we are as apt to harm as we are to heal.

Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.