As it currently stands, the main implementation of checklists in hospitals consists of nothing more than taping up a sheet of paper onto the OR wall. I want to give hospitals a tool to analyze checklist performance data and refine them for procedural purposes only – no patient data needed, as of now.
What are your thoughts on that?
The basic lists as you described, are usually tied to charge codes and then applied on a patient by patient basis.
What you've observed is probably a hospital that didn't have such a system in place yet (they are expensive). While you could certainly pitch your product to such a place, they're likely going to ask if you can tie into a billing/charge code system. That's a pretty expensive and time consuming integration with legacy systems to do that.
My advice is to do as much business development as you can before writing any code. See if you can follow a nurse around and understand how the information flows through the system to figure out where you can add value without signing up for a lot of costly integrations.
The only real way in is to have a friend who is a decision maker at a hospital and willing to take a chance on something you build. Or be part of a group that is building a new hospital so you can get your tech in. Either way the barriers to entry are so large, they aren't friendly to the average entrepreneur right now.