Distributed Cognition May Provide Clues to Medical Errors
The James S. McDonnell Foundation has awarded a $4.7 million grant to researchers investigating how cognitive science can be used to reduce medical errors in complex health care systems.
The team’s goals are to identify weaknesses in medical decision-making processes and to develop solutions that improve patient safety. As the group’s leader explained,
“Thought processes underlying critical care are distributed across the minds of many types of clinicians and health care providers, as well as physical objects such as notes and computer equipment. The notion of distributed cognition shifts the focus of cognitive science from the study of individuals in controlled settings to the study of groups of individuals in the real-world context.”
Vimla L. Patel
Professor & Vice Chair, Dept of Biomedical Informatics
Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, ASU
Scientists from Arizona State University, Banner Health, the University of Texas-Houston, and Washington University in St. Louis will collaborate on the study. Private-sector partners for the study include Immersion Inc, Intermec Inc, and Visicu Inc.
As part of the project, the researchers will hold annual conferences with international science and health care groups including the Toronto-based Cochran Foundation, the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems at Northwestern University, and the Complexity in Social Science project in France.
Experts have estimated that medical errors are responsible for more U.S. deaths annually than breast cancer or car accidents.
Source: ASU News
Related Links: Banner Health News Center; American Society of Mechanical Engineers; azfamily.com
Related Podcast: New Research About Medical Errors & Physician Trainees from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Tags: cancer patient concerns; Trevor Cohen; Kanav Kahol; Jiajie Zhang; Timothy G Buchman; Marshall Smith; emergency medicine; anesthesiology; bioinformatics; Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center; surgical simulation; philanthropy; intensive care
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