Cognitive Engineering Approaches to Safety in Healthcare

Abstract

Healthcare work is accomplished by complex, highly distributed, joint cognitive systems, but is often viewed from within (by its workers) and without (by society at large) as individually-based craft work. The choice of this viewpoint makes collaborations difficult, because the theories and tools of cognitive engineering then seem foreign to health professionals, and vice versa. In this panel, a group of leading cognitive engineers with extensive experience in healthcare environments will discuss their experience in this domain with emphasis on methods for improving the process and content of these collaborations.