Human Error and Patient Safety: Managing Cognitive and Motivational Bias in Medical Decision Making

Abstract

Program Description:

Quality improvement (QI) activities emphasize systems to prevent or detect inevitable errors by fallible humans. Aside from intentional misconduct or impaired judgment, human errors often are attributed to system factors, deemphasizing the role of individual decision making as a potential cause of error. Convincing data show that cognitive and motivational biases affect how providers collect and apply clinical data. Our purpose is to increase audience awareness of cognitive “traps” in medical decision making. We will discuss illustrative case studies, practical ways to incorporate these concepts into QI and patient safety activities, and uses of “debiasing” and other strategies to improve individual decision making.

Educational Objectives:

(1) Describe the importance of individual cognitive processes in medical decision making and error and situations in which these processes might be either beneficial or harmful. (2) Describe cognitive processes, heuristics, and biases that play a role in otolaryngologists’ medical and surgical decision making and how these factors may contribute to medical error. (3) Implement individual and institutional methods to identify and mitigate these factors to improve personal clinical performance.