What do Santa Claus, pilots and intensive-care unit doctors have in common? If you're lucky, it's checklists.

If you're headed for a hospital intensive care unit anytime soon take a look at a commentary by Atul Gawande in the New York Times about the importance of simple checklists in health care.

A study by Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that when intensive care units observed that long-revered custom of pilots -- the checklist -- that lives were saved in dramatic numbers. The results were so compelling that of course, it would seem to be only right to institute this practice right away in as many hospitals as possible. This is not a long, involved deal. In one case, it was just five simple items on a checklist -- things like reminding doctors to wash their hands.

A year ago, researchers at Johns Hopkins University published the results of a program that instituted in nearly every intensive care unit in Michigan a simple five-step checklist designed to prevent certain hospital infections. It reminds doctors to make sure, for example, that before putting large intravenous lines into patients, they actually wash their hands and don a sterile gown and gloves.

The results were stunning. Within three months, the rate of bloodstream infections from these I.V. lines fell by two-thirds. The average I.C.U. cut its infection rate from 4 percent to zero. Over 18 months, the program saved more than 1,500 lives and nearly $200 million.

The interesting part about it is that an obscure little government office has declared this valuable program illegal and shut it down. How dumb is that? Deadly dumb!

I think the researchers should publish those checklists for the general public and let patients pack their own questions when they go to the hospital.

I was intrigued by a question posed by the writer about this study. If lives could be saved by this one simple tool -- a checklist -- what else could be accomplished? Makes you wonder about government, hmmm?

To read the whole Times commentary, click here.

To hear an interview with Dr. Peter Pronovost, who worked on the study, on National Public Radio click here.

To read Atul Gawande's full article about the study in the New Yorker, click here .