In 2003, ICUs in Michigan implemented a humble checklist of basic hygiene and sterilization practices. After three months, infection rates dropped from 2.7 per 1,000 patients to zero. After 18 months, more than 1,500 lives had been saved.

Since then, checklist creator Peter Pronovost, MD, has developed several other checklists that have helped clinicians across the world dramatically reduce the medical errors that lead to hospital infections. As a result, TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of 2008 and he recently received a "genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

In the sixth installment, Dr. Pronovost joined our On Call series to discuss these checklists.