Twenty-five plain statements about what you already do. About five minutes. At the end you'll see which of your five defenses is thinnest, and what to do about it this week.
The organizations that almost never have accidents don't wait for one to find out where they're weak. Safety
researchers call the habit preoccupation with failure:
staying alert to how things could go wrong and treating a near miss as information rather than proof that all is
well. This check points that habit at you.
Each statement describes something you can verify: a number you know, a person you've asked, a list you keep.
Answer for how things stand today, not how you'd like them to be. Five statements belong to each step of the
SCOTT Protocol, so the result shows you a profile across all five rather than a single grade.
This is a self-reflection tool, not a medical test. It doesn't measure your health, diagnose
anything or predict what will happen to you. A low number in a step means a habit you haven't built yet, nothing
more. If something about your health worries you right now, call your clinician; in an emergency, call 911.
Welcome back. Your earlier answers were restored from this device.
25 statements, about five minutes
Your reliability profile
Points by step
Five statements per step, each scored from 0 (not yet) to 3 (completely), so a step can hold 15 points.
051015
SSelf-awarenessThinnest
CConsistent monitoringThinnest
OOversightThinnest
TTenacityThinnest
TTaking actionThinnest
Show the numbers
Step
Statement
Your answer
Points
Your own answers, scored in this browser. This is a reflection tool, not a measure of your health.
Where to start
Next steps for your other steps
S Strengthen self-awareness
Write down three generations.For your parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, note their major conditions and the age each was diagnosed. The CDC's family health history guide lists who to ask about and what to record. Then add it to your health brief.
Name your top two risks.Using that family list and your own habits, write down the two conditions most likely to cause you trouble. Take the list to your next visit and ask whether your screening plan matches it.
Give a lingering symptom a deadline.The National Cancer Institute advises seeing a doctor about symptoms that don't get better after a few weeks. Note the date something starts, so "a while" becomes a number.
Pick one number and log it.If high blood pressure runs in your family, a home cuff and a notebook will show you a trend that a once-a-year visit can't. Same time of day, written down every time.
Find your last three readings.Sign in to your patient portal, or call the office, and get your last three blood pressure readings and your most recent A1C or blood sugar. Put them in the "usual numbers" box of your health brief.
Read your own results.Turn on portal notifications, or ask for copies of lab and imaging reports, and look at each one when it arrives. Anything marked high or low goes on your question list.
Use Ask Me 3 at your next visit.Three questions from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement: "What is my main problem?" "What do I need to do?" "Why is it important for me to do this?" They're on the before-an-appointment checklist, with a list of what to bring.
Choose your second set of ears.Ask one person, this week, whether they would come with you (or join by phone) if you ever faced a serious appointment. Put their name on your health brief.
Put a primary care clinician on the job.If nobody has seen you for a routine visit in the past year, book one. A clinician who knows your baseline is the expert most likely to notice when it changes.
Name a health care proxy.Pick the person who would speak for you if you couldn't, tell them what matters to you, and write their name and number on your health brief. Ask your clinician's office which form your state uses.
Set a follow-up rule.Whenever a test is done, ask when you will hear. Put that date on your calendar, and if it passes in silence, call. No news is not good news; it is no news.
Rehearse the hard day.Read the leaving-the-hospital checklist now, while nothing is wrong, and tell someone where your brief and medication list are kept.
Check your screening timeline.Enter your age on the screening timeline and book the first thing you're due for this week, not this year.
Print your health brief.Fill in the one-page health brief, print two copies, and give one to the person you would want called first.
Do a brown-bag review.Put every pill bottle, inhaler, cream and supplement in one bag, take it to your next appointment or to your pharmacist, and ask them to check the whole lot for duplicates and interactions. The new-medication checklist has the questions to ask.
Off by default. Turn it on to come back later and see your answers; they are saved only in this browser.
Reading your profile
Each step can hold 15 points. Think of anything up to 5 as a thin layer, 6 to 10 as a layer with some holes in it,
and 11 or more as a layer that's doing its job. The numbers only compare you with yourself; there is no passing
mark and no average to beat.
Why point you at the thinnest step first? Because of the way harm actually gets through. James Reason, who spent a
career studying human error, pictured every system's defenses as
slices of Swiss cheese: each slice has
holes, and an accident happens when the holes in several slices line up. You can't make any layer perfect. You can
shrink the biggest holes, and the biggest holes are usually in the layer you've been ignoring.
Pick one next step, do it this week, and take the check again in six months. Scores drift. A parent's new
diagnosis changes your family history; a new job knocks your routine loose; a clinician retires. The point of
checking again is to catch that drift while it's still small.
What stays on this device
Your answers are scored inside your browser and never sent anywhere. Unless you tick "Keep my answers on this
device," they disappear when you close the page. If you do tick it, they're saved in this browser's local
storage, where anyone using this browser could see them, so leave it off on a shared or work computer.
Turn on JavaScript to see what the field kit has stored in this browser.
Last updated October 16, 2026. Guidance cited here was current on that date; clinical guidelines change, so
check with your own clinician. See our editorial policy.
Want a physician to look at your thinnest defense with you?
Dr. Scott works with individuals, families and leadership teams through The Scott Health Advisory: a structured review of where your health could fail, and a plan to keep it from happening.