Commentary: The affective imperative: coming to terms with our emotions.
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Decision Making↗
Biomedical subjects
Pat Croskerry
Publications and source records attributed to Pat Croskerry.
Cognitive versus technical debriefing after simulation training.
BACKGROUND: Recent literature describes "cognitive dispositions to respond" (CDRs) that may lead physicians to err in their clinical reasoning. OBJECTIVES: To assess learner perception of high-fidelity mannequin-based simulation and debriefing to improve understanding of CDRs. METHODS: Emergency medicine (EM) residents were exposed to two simulations designed to bring out the CDR concept known as "vertical line failure." Residents were then block-randomized to a technical/knowledge debriefing covering the medical subject matter or a CDR debriefing covering vertical line failure. They then completed a written survey and were interviewed by an ethnographer. Four investigators blinded to group assignment reviewed the interview transcripts and coded the comments. The comments were qualitatively analyzed and those upon which three out of four raters agreed were quantified. A random sample of 84 comments was assessed for interrater reliability using a kappa statistic. RESULTS: Sixty-two residents from two EM residencies participated. Survey results were compared by technical (group A, n = 32) or cognitive (group B, n = 30) debriefing. There were 255 group A and 176 group B comments quantified. The kappa statistic for coding the interview comments was 0.42. The CDR debriefing group made more, and qualitatively richer, comments regarding CDR concepts. The technical debriefing group made more comments on the medical subjects of cases. Both groups showed an appreciation for the risk of diagnostic error. CONCLUSIONS: Survey data indicate that technical debriefing was better received than cognitive debriefing. The authors theorize that an understanding of CDRs can be facilitated through simulation training based on the analysis of interview comments.
Cognition↗
Profiles in patient safety: medication errors in the emergency department.
Medication errors are frequent in the emergency department (ED). The unique operating characteristics of the ED may exacerbate their rate and severity. They are associated with variable clinical outcomes that range from inconsequential to death. Fifteen adult and pediatric cases are described here to illustrate a variety of errors. They may occur at any of the previously described five stages, from ordering a medication to its delivery. A sixth stage has been added to emphasize the final part of the medication administration process in the ED, drawing attention to considerations that should be made for patients being discharged home. The capability for dispensing medication, without surveillance by a pharmacist, provides an error-producing condition to which physicians and nurses should be especially vigilant. Except in very limited and defined situations, physicians should not administer medications. Adherence to defined roles would reduce the team communication errors that are a common theme in the cases described here.
Adolescent↗
A case study in medical error: the use of the portfolio entry.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Practice-Based Learning and Improvement competency incorporates lifelong learning techniques and self-reflection. Resident portfolios have received attention as a useful method for addressing this competency. A recent patient encounter provided an experienced clinical educator with the opportunity to develop a portfolio entry that was distributed to all of the residents and faculty in an emergency medicine residency. This report may assist educators in explaining how one could approach the development of the portfolio as a tool for self-assessment. A candid discussion by a senior faculty member about issues that contributed to medical error has been underreported in the medical literature.
Canada↗
Profiles in patient safety: authority gradients in medical error.
The term "authority gradient" was first defined in aviation when it was noted that pilots and copilots may not communicate effectively in stressful situations if there is a significant difference in their experience, perceived expertise, or authority. A number of unintentional aviation, aerospace, and industrial incidents have been attributed, in part, to authority gradients. The concept of authority gradient was introduced to medicine in the Institute of Medicine report To Err Is Human, yet little has been written or acknowledged in the medical literature regarding its role in medical error. The practice of medicine and medical training programs are highly organized, hierarchical structures that depend on supervision by authority figures. The concept that authority gradients might contribute to medical error is largely unrecognized. This article presents one case and a series of examples to detail how authority gradients can contribute to medical error, and describes methods used in other disciplines to avoid their potentially negative impact.
Chickenpox↗
Cognitive forcing strategies in clinical decisionmaking.
Cognitive errors underlie most diagnostic errors that are made in the course of clinical decisionmaking in the emergency department. These errors are universal and are prevalent in the special milieu of the ED. Their properties appear to be distinct from those associated with the performance of procedures. They are often costly, but, importantly for both the patient and the physician, they are also highly preventable. Recent developments in education theory provide a means for minimizing and avoiding diagnostic error. Through the process of metacognition, clinicians can develop cognitive forcing strategies to abort such latent errors. Three levels of cognitive forcing strategies are described: universal, generic, and specific. Specific cognitive forcing strategies provide a formal cognitive debiasing approach to deal with what have previously been described as pitfalls in clinical reasoning. This metacognitive approach can be taught to practicing clinicians and to those in training to inoculate them against making diagnostic errors. The adoption of this method provides a systematic approach to cognitive root-cause analysis in the avoidance of adverse outcomes associated with delayed or missed diagnoses and with the clinical management of specific cases.
Awareness↗
The importance of cognitive errors in diagnosis and strategies to minimize them.
In the area of patient safety, recent attention has focused on diagnostic error. The reduction of diagnostic error is an important goal because of its associated morbidity and potential preventability. A critical subset of diagnostic errors arises through cognitive errors, especially those associated with failures in perception, failed heuristics, and biases; collectively, these have been referred to as cognitive dispositions to respond (CDRs). Historically, models of decision-making have given insufficient attention to the contribution of such biases, and there has been a prevailing pessimism against improving cognitive performance through debiasing techniques. Recent work has catalogued the major cognitive biases in medicine; the author lists these and describes a number of strategies for reducing them ("cognitive debiasing"). Principle among them is metacognition, a reflective approach to problem solving that involves stepping back from the immediate problem to examine and reflect on the thinking process. Further research effort should be directed at a full and complete description and analysis of CDRs in the context of medicine and the development of techniques for avoiding their associated adverse outcomes. Considerable potential exists for reducing cognitive diagnostic errors with this approach. The author provides an extensive list of CDRs and a list of strategies to reduce diagnostic errors.
Cognition↗
Profiles in patient safety: emergency care transitions.
A 59-year-old man presented to the emergency department (ED) with the chief complaint of "panic attacks." In total, he was evaluated by 14 faculty physicians, 2 fellows, and 16 residents from emergency medicine, cardiology, neurology, psychiatry, and internal medicine. These multiple transitions were responsible, in part, for the perpetuation of a failure to accurately diagnose the patient's underlying medical illness. The case illustrates the discontinuity of care that occurs at transitions, which may threaten the safety and quality of patient care. Considerable effort must be directed at making transitions effective and safe. Recommendations to improve transitions include a heightened awareness of cognitive biases operating at these vulnerable times, improving team situational awareness and communication, and exploring systems to facilitate effective transfer of relevant data.
Diagnostic Errors↗
Patient safety: a curriculum for teaching patient safety in emergency medicine.
The last decade has witnessed a growing awareness of medical error and the inadequacies of our health care delivery systems. The Harvard Practice Study and subsequent Institute of Medicine Reports brought national attention to long-overlooked problems with health care quality and patient safety. The Committee on Quality of Health Care in America challenged professional societies to develop curriculums on patient safety and adopt patient safety teaching into their training and certification requirements. The Patient Safety Task Force of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) was charged with that mission. The curriculum presented here offers an approach to teaching patient safety in emergency medicine.
Curriculum↗
Profiles in patient safety: sidedness error.
This case describes a 45-year-old woman with significant respiratory distress secondary to a left-sided pleural effusion that mandated an urgent thoracentesis. An adverse event occurred when the physician performed the procedure on the incorrect side of the patient. Results of the incident investigation followed by a discussion of medical errors models, common errors types, human factors considerations, and conditions that contribute to error are presented. Pertinent case-specific and general concepts of a system approach to reduce this type of medical error are discussed, and educational recommendations are offered.
Drainage↗
Quality and education.
Juxtaposing quality with education in emergency medicine (EM) generates two distinct issues: 1) the quality of education in EM, and 2) educating about quality in EM. There is considerable overlap between the two, and neither should be considered without the other. This paper focuses on education about quality in EM, with some discussion of the quality of EM education. Despite its apparent importance, there is a relative paucity of research on this topic.
Emergency Medicine↗
Achieving quality in clinical decision making: cognitive strategies and detection of bias.
Clinical decision making is a cornerstone of high-quality care in emergency medicine. The density of decision making is unusually high in this unique milieu, and a combination of strategies has necessarily evolved to manage the load. In addition to the traditional hypothetico-deductive method, emergency physicians use several other approaches, principal among which are heuristics. These cognitive short-cutting strategies are especially adaptive under the time and resource limitations that prevail in many emergency departments (EDs), but occasionally they fail. When they do, we refer to them as cognitive errors. They are costly but highly preventable. It is important that emergency physicians be aware of the nature and extent of these heuristics and biases, or cognitive dispositions to respond (CDRs). Thirty are catalogued in this article, together with descriptions of their properties as well as the impact they have on clinical decision making in the ED. Strategies are delineated in each case, to minimize their occurrence. Detection and recognition of these cognitive phenomena are a first step in achieving cognitive de-biasing to improve clinical decision making in the ED.
Decision Making↗
"Profiles in patient safety": a new feature.
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Emergency Medical Services↗