7 Pre-hospital emergency medicine takes place within a highly complex and stressful environment where clinicians must make time-critical decisions about unstable patients with incomplete histories working with often unfamiliar teams. These factors render the pre-hospital environment susceptible to error. To minimise the risk of introducing error, the pre-hospital practitioner must have an understanding of how and why mistakes are made as well as an understanding of team resource management. ‘Human factors’ is defined as enhancing clinical performance through an understanding of the effects of teamwork, tasks, equipment, workspace, culture and organisation on human behaviour and abilities, and the application of that knowledge in clinical settings. It is human nature to make mistakes. Whether it is clicking ‘send’ on an email before double-checking the recipient or getting lost when driving, the consequences can sometimes be serious. However, in healthcare settings, similar types of errors have even greater potential for harmful consequences. The provision of healthcare involves humans working within systems to deliver care. Each system has levels of defence that reduce the chances of making mistakes, e.g. World Health Organization (WHO) surgical checklist. However, these levels of defence have holes – so called ‘latent conditions’.
Human factors
Making mistakes
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